Relics from the Seventh Sanctum
by Xanrivash
Summary: A collection of short stories, based on random prompts.
1. The Ghost in the Kitchen

This wasn't so bad, as missions went. Correction; this _hadn't been_ so bad, as far as missions went. The little den of Shadows in the basement of the old abandoned house had been easy enough to root out, but then Demyx went upstairs (without the stairs collapsing under him, surprisingly enough) to find an old woman in the kitchen, fretting and fussing about what a mess the place was and how someone really needed to clean it and how she was too old and arthritic to do it herself anymore. And then he saw and smelled the partly-decayed body on the floor, wearing the remains of an old flower-print dress that looked just like what the old woman had on, and he realized that he could see straight through the old woman. Fortunately, he'd had enough presence of mind left to run back outside before being sick.

And now, for whatever reason, he was sneaking back inside the house and up the stairs to the kitchen, even though he knew there weren't any Heartless left in there and he was being a damned idiot. Unfortunately, since being a damned idiot was one of the few things he did very well, he eventually found himself right back where he started, in the kitchen, watching the old ghost fret and fuss about the cleanliness of the place as though she had no idea she was dead. Well, come to think of it, she probably didn't. He was going to speak up and let her know he was there, he really was, but the words stuck in his throat for so long that she turned around and saw him before he could. "How did you get in here?" she demanded suspiciously, reaching towards the broom and not noticing that her hand went right through it.

"...The front door was wide open," Demyx said, after swallowing a couple times in order to be able to speak at all. And really, it had been, if you extended the definition of "wide open" to include "gone". "I was chasing a dog, and I thought I saw it run in here."

The old lady merely huffed at him, unimpressed by his excuse. "Well, I never leave the door 'wide open' for anyone to walk on in like that, so _someone_ must have opened it, and I never saw any dog run in here," she said, looking at him as though she expected he was here to rob her blind and burn the house down with her in it, the fact that she was already long dead notwithstanding. "And I certainly wasn't expecting any visitors, or else I'd have had the kitchen cleaned - or I would if I could, but I just can't seem to keep up with the mess anymore; I swear the dust has been piling up twice as fast as ever lately - but never mind that. If I'd been expecting you, I would have let you in myself."

"Um..." Oh, Gods, should he tell her yet that she was already long dead? "You know...maybe...I could help you clean up in here." Given how she was fussing and fuming about what a mess the place was, maybe, if her kitchen could finally be cleaned, she'd be content enough to move on.

The woman continued to give him a suspicious look, but finally nodded. "All right. But I'll be keeping an eye on you, mark my words."

"Fair enough." It wasn't like Demyx had any ill intent towards the woman or her property, after all. Instead, he simply grabbed the broom and started sweeping up the dust on the floor, carefully working around the disintegrating body and trying not to be sick again whenever he saw it. Ah, Gods, this was going to be a hell of a story to tell when he got back to the castle...cleaning the kitchen for an old lady ghost. Only during a life like his could this ever be par for the course. Once he'd cleaned up all the surface dirt and dust, he tried to turn the tap on to fill a bucket for the mop, but nothing happened - when he did a more in-depth magical check, it seemed like the water supply to the house had been turned off, presumably for non-payment of bills. How long had the poor woman been dead, without anyone ever checking on her? She must have been lonely as anything in life...or had the water been shut off while she was still alive? Maybe she'd been badly affected by dementia and simply forgot to pay her bills, keep or make doctor's appointments, take her medicine, maybe even feed herself. Someone should have been taking care of her, but maybe she hadn't had anyone. "All right, this isn't working; I'm going to go outside and see if I can get anything from a hose," he said, heading back outside and taking the bucket with him. Really, he was just going to use his powers to fill it, but the house did have the remains of a flower garden next to it, so presumably there had to have been some outdoor water source at some point that would work as a cover; hopefully she wasn't going to think he was so stupid as to break in just to steal an old bucket and nothing else. Still wondering what the whole story was, he filled up the bucket and carried it back inside, to mop the floor as dutifully as if he was being paid for it.

Once the floor was as clean as he could get it, what with the dead body and everything, he turned his attention to the garbage piled on every other surface. The garbage can was crammed full, with trash so old it didn't even stink anymore, and it seemed she'd started leaving garbage everywhere instead of ever taking it out - an argument in favor of dementia. Odds were her garbage service had also been canceled for non-payment, but he still bagged up the contents of the can and dragged them out to the curb, then found some more garbage bags under the sink and started filling them with all the old wrappers and moldy half-eaten food and long-expired coupons and garbage he didn't even want to identify that had been left all over the place. Dear Gods, it stank now, but he bit back his gag reflex and kept working, taking each bag outside as it filled up and starting over with a fresh one. It wasn't like the mess would get clean any other way.

Once the table and counters were clean, he opened up the refrigerator, and the stench in there had him running outside with the current bag so he could throw up into it without her seeing him. Clearly, her power had been turned off too, and everything in there was in an advanced state of decay. Well, except the dead cockroaches, but how bad did the rest of it have to be to kill a cockroach? On the plus side, he hadn't eaten in several hours, so his stomach had to be nearly empty by now... Cinching the bag shut and tying it off, he left it piled with the rest of them and headed back inside to face the remaining horrors, firmly reminding himself that he'd dealt with so many nasty and horrible things in his life that a fridge full of rotting food and dead roaches, no matter how disgusting, didn't even register on the scale. He just had to try to will himself not to smell it. "Man, this stuff is pretty old," he said, trying to be as casual as possible to distract himself from the wall of pure _gross_ he was dealing with. "Haven't been grocery shopping in a while, have you?"

There was a pause before the old woman answered, as if she had to think about how long it had been before answering him. "I suppose it has been a while," she said finally. "I keep meaning to go out and get the shopping done, but I just never have the energy anymore. I always end up putting it off until tomorrow, and then when tomorrow comes, I'm still feeling too old and tired to leave the house and maybe I can do it tomorrow..."

"That explains it," Demyx grunted, right before his stomach decided it wasn't putting up with one more second of this shit and he had to run outside again.

Once the last of his stomach contents made it into the garbage bag, he was able to go back inside and actually finish the job, to the point of washing the table and the counters and the filthy stovetop and even the inside of that disgusting fridge, until he felt like he might actually be able to cook in this kitchen if he had to. "Do you want me to clean out the cupboards too?" he asked when he was done, figuring he might as well make as complete a job of it as he could. "If you haven't been grocery shopping in a while, there's probably a lot of old, expired stuff in there too..."

"Oh, no, no, that will all keep," the old woman said, waving her hand; Demyx was momentarily fascinated by how the sunlight shone through it. "I need something left to eat for dinner tonight. You've been a wonderful help, though, young man. I don't have a whole lot of money to spare, so take a few jars of jelly from the cupboard by the fridge by way of payment. Homemade. Do you know I used to win prizes at the county fair every year for my homemade jelly?"

"Actually, no, I didn't know that," Demyx said as he opened the cupboard in question. The jars were there as advertised, each one labeled with its content and (presumably) the month and year they were made; he took three of the newest jars - apple, peach, and cherry, each from just over a year and a half ago. He was willing to bet good munny that that was the last point in time when the woman was capable of functioning normally. "Haven't made any in a while, I see," he added casually, realizing he now had to break some major news to her. Oh, Gods, what if she didn't believe him?

"No, I haven't," the woman sighed regretfully. "Haven't had the energy to go to the farmer's market in Tiverton in ages...that's where they have all the best fruits, you know. Fresh from the field, not like those cardboard peaches and wooden tomatoes you see in the grocery store that have been shipped in from Bollinia and Colobria and Equanter and God alone knows where."

"I know what you mean," Demyx said, presuming she meant to name actual countries like Bolivia, Columbia, and Ecuador. "Things always taste better closer to where they're grown."

"That's exactly right," the woman said, clearly on a subject she felt strongly enough about to give Demyx an undeserved lecture on. "I don't see why we should have to ship in all these fruits and vegetables we can grow just fine around here, just because they can get away with paying those poor farmers in the Amazon three cents a bushel or whatever for produce that has to cost a fortune to ship and doesn't even taste like anything when it gets here, when they could save enough money buying what we grow around here and not having to ship it three thousand miles and having something actually worth eating when it gets there. That's what they sell at the farmer's market over in Tiverton. Good, local stuff that still tastes like it should. My husband used to take me up there every weekend, did the driving and helped me carry everything, but since he died, I just haven't had the energy to do it myself..."

"But you still cook for yourself, right?" Demyx said, trying to find a potential opening to break the news and stay the hell off the subject of the international produce trade.

"Don't have anyone else to do it for me, do I?" the woman asked tartly, in a particular young-people-are-such-idiots-nowadays that was very specific to people her age. "Of course, half the time, I don't even have the energy to do that, so I just have some bread or some chips or something...and lately, I just haven't had any appetite at all. I've never been one of those people who can eat anything, anytime; when I'm not hungry, I just don't want to eat."

"Well, um...the fact that...you're dead might have something to do with it." And it just might have a lot to do with the fact that she was dead, but now was not the time to speculate on her exact cause of death; the coroner could sort that out if the body wasn't too far gone. Now that he'd gone and said it aloud, Demyx's only job was to convince her that she was dead, period. She'd obviously gone on thinking she was alive for quite some time when she was anything but, so it was apt to take some doing.

As expected, she didn't believe a word he said. "Dead? Nonsense, absolute nonsense," she huffed, glowering at him as though he was a misbehaving child she had a mind to take a ruler to. "You young people think you're the greatest wits in history. I may be old, but I'm as alive as you are, young man."

"...Well, leaving aside the question of exactly how alive I am, which is a bigger question than you might think, you are definitely less alive than that," Demyx sighed, wondering if he should just go back to the castle and get Saix. Saix had years of experience talking ghosts into accepting their deaths and moving on, at least according to him, and Saix wasn't the type to lie about something like that. "I mean...didn't you notice how I was sweeping and mopping the floor _around your dead body_? And seriously, how else could you go for...maybe weeks on end without ever bothering to eat and still never feeling hungry? How are you strong and limber enough to stand up and walk but not strong enough to pick up a broom? Why didn't you ever notice that the water's been turned off or that all the fridge in your food was - sorry, _food_ in your _fridge_ - was rotting, or how cold it is in here when you've got nothing on but socks and a dress and presumably underwear? I have a long coat and boots on, and I can feel it...I guess your gas has been turned off too, or whatever your heater runs on."

The woman just stared at him for a long second, seemingly startled by all the evidence he was throwing at her, then narrowed her eyes. "You may imagine you're having a grand old joke on a poor old lady, young man, but you've gone far enough," she said, starting towards him with one hand outstretched. "In fact, I have half a mind to -" There was a sensation of sudden cold, and they both froze in place, both staring at the hand that had just gone clear through his shoulder.

Demyx was the first to break the silence. "So, do you believe me yet?" he said dryly, backing away from the woman's hand. "Before you start questioning which end the problem is on, remember, _I_ was solid enough to sweep the floor and take out the garbage. Neither of which you've been able to do in quite some time, it seems."

The old woman frowned, staring at her hand as if it was somehow magical and would do tricks on its own if she watched it long enough. "I don't believe it," she said finally. "How could I...well, die and never notice?"

"Well, content yourself with the thought that if you didn't notice, it must have been quick and painless," Demyx sighed, really wishing he could go get Saix now without looking and feeling like an idiot. "But at any rate, since you _are_ dead, there's no real point to hanging around your kitchen, waiting for it to get all dusty again. Since the first thing I'll probably do when I leave is call the police and report a dead body at the residence, you'll probably want to be out of here before they show up. Besides, you want to see your husband again, don't you?" That last was a bit of a gamble, but she had spoken kindly about him. Presumably they at least hadn't hated each other.

The woman nodded, looking wistful. "Him and Mary...I used to go over and visit her every Tuesday to play dominoes, once she took her vows and forgave me for stealing Paul. She always said she was happier as a nun than she ever could have been as a married woman. Our mother was mad as anything, though; she'd had her heart set on Mary marrying Paul and me marrying that Solus boy Robert. Good thing I didn't - I knew that boy would never amount to anything, and he never did. Died drunk in a back alley and good riddance, especially for that poor girl he did marry." Demyx only nodded politely, entirely familiar with how old women could go on and on about their deceased relatives without ever caring how little their audience needed or wanted to know. Maybe listing off all the dead relatives she missed would help her move on herself so she could see them all, but he wished she would get on with it. "And dear little Johnny - he was only five years old when he came down with whooping cough. None of us thought much of it - every child had it in those days, and mostly lived through it just fine - except he suddenly took a turn for the worse. I'm sure he would have looked just like you, if he'd lived that long..." Now, Demyx had seen the lovingly framed picture of the little boy on top of the fridge, and seriously doubted that a black-haired, dark-eyed boy would have grown up to be a blond-haired, blue-eyed man, but he was polite enough not to interrupt her. There wouldn't have been any point to it. "I named him after my brother Johnny - he was the baby of the family, and the apple of our father's eye. It broke his heart when Johnny went off to war and was killed on some island out in the Pacific whose name I could never pronounce even when I could remember it..."

"Well, you can see them all again in a minute," Demyx said, unable to take it any longer. "All you have to do is just...move on, leave this world behind, and head to the next one."

"But...how do I get there?"

"Just...wish yourself there?" Demyx wasn't sure; he'd come as close to dying as anyone could while still being able to come back and talk about it, but he wasn't sure how useful his experiences would be to someone who was genuinely and undeniably actually _dead_. Presumably, if she saw any big white lights waiting for her, she'd have mentioned such; he didn't remember any. But the woman only blinked at him, and closed her eyes; a second later, she disappeared. Demyx sighed with relief - she was certainly going to be happier where she was now than she would have been fretting about her dirty kitchen while the house fell apart around her, and more importantly to him, he could finally get out of here without feeling guilty about it.

When the police responded to the anonymous pay phone call about a dead body at the residence, they found no one there except the body in question, which had quite obviously been there for weeks. So they were quite surprised to find the kitchen - no other room in the house, just the kitchen - spotlessly clean, from the counters to the floor and even the inside of the fridge, with no garbage left in sight. Stranger still, nothing in any of the cupboards had been touched, except for the one next to the fridge, where three perfectly clean circles in the dust marked the former locations of three missing jars of jelly.

* * *

><p>AN: And one day, I found a site called Seventh Sanctum, which has all kinds of interesting generators, anything from fictional tavern names (which is what I was originally looking for) to story prompts. I love their prompts (at least, some of them). I managed to write two stories in one day. I never write two whole stories in one day; I have a hard enough time writing one story in a week.<p>

Prompt: The story must have a ghost at the beginning. The story must involve a jar of jelly in it.

I wish it had the "slip of the tongue" condition too. I typed "fridge in your food" by accident, then since it was in dialogue anyway, I just left it and made Demyx correct himself. But Demyx is always polite to old ladies, and ghosts.


	2. Never Again

It was a quiet night, without even the chirping of crickets or the rustling of the wind to interrupt it, though for all Demyx knew, they were entirely present and he just couldn't hear them. It was a shame, really, but he still remembered the sounds well enough to recreate them in his mind, soft and sweet as ever, and superimpose them over the peaceful fields around him. It would have helped if he could have closed his eyes, but he couldn't really afford to - after all, with his hearing the way it was, he had to hunt mostly by sight. And the darker it was, the more difficult Heartless were to see, except for those glowing eyes.

All of a sudden, the silence was shattered by a loud, ugly noise. The sound was unmistakable, even with Demyx's ears. He'd heard it entirely too often in his life to ever mistake it for anything else. No matter how piss-poor your hearing was, if you had any hearing left at all, no sound was ever as clear as the scream of a child in pain.

Where was it coming from? There weren't too many options; it had to be fairly close, for him to hear it at all. There was a house - well, trailer would be more accurate - close enough to still see in the dimming light, the only such for a mile in any direction that he knew of, which had to make it close enough for the scream to come from. Keeping low to the ground, using the long grass and weeds for concealment, he made his way towards the trailer - oh, there was that scream again, definitely coming from the trailer. Hearing a child scream like that made him feel sick to his stomach, and hurt him deep inside in that place where his heart used to be - but it also made him angry, so angry...so angry that if he kept less than absolute control of himself for even a second, Gods alone knew what he might do to whoever was hurting that child...

"Shut _up_, ya li'l bitch!" a man roared drunkenly, again from inside the house, accompanied by the sound of a hard blow. He must have been closer to the trailer than he realized, if he could hear the abuser's speech that clearly...ah, Gods, he was feeling so sick...sick and so _angry_...

"Daddy, Daddy, stop it, please!"

"Shut UP!" Another hard blow. It sounded like he'd knocked the little girl over.

"Help me...!"

"Shutcher mouth an' take it, ya bitch!"

"Mommy...!"

Another hard blow. Two. Three. "Your mommy don' give a damn, bitch! Now shut up or I will fuckin' shutcha up for good!" A whimper, the whimper of a child who's lost all hope of comfort, and the sound of a zipper. "Yeah, that's right, girl. I knew ya weren' that stupid. Jus' open that noisy, tarty li'l mouth up wide 'fore I get _real_ mad - an' keep the fuck _quiet_."

Demyx knew he was still too far away from the trailer to stop what he knew was about to happen, but thankfully, he was also too far away - and the occupants were about to be too distracted - for them to hear him being violently, miserably sick. Gods, why did people do that to their own children? Why did the Gods let people like that live? Why did the Gods let people like that even exist? And why, why, _why_ did _this_ have to be taking place _now_, where _he_ could hear it and know _from experience_ what was happening and not be able to stop it?

By the time he straightened up, wiping a splash of vomit off his cheek, none of the rest of the Organization would have recognized the hard-faced man with the cold, merciless eyes. Maybe he hadn't been able to stop the abuse from happening this time. But he could damn well make sure that it never happened again. And he could damn well make that bastard _pay_.

An instant later, the regular Demyx was mostly back, but with a cold, calculating edge. The revenges he _wanted_ to bring on that man, appropriate and satisfying though they would be for a moment, were _completely_ not the sort of things he could live with on his conscience. No matter how much the man deserved what he wanted to do to him - no matter how _inadequate_ it seemed, no matter how the man deserved worse than anything Demyx could do to him if he had a year to do nothing but plan - Demyx simply could not let himself sink to that level and be that kind of person. Though, blessed Gods, seeing that man suffer the way he'd made that little girl suffer - the way Edmy Ghatori had suffered for so long, with no one to save him or even speak up on his behalf...

_No. Keep a hold of yourself, for fuck's sake. The important part is not to punish the man, it's to save the girl._

He didn't dare stand up and peer through a window, for fear of being seen prematurely, as long as he knew that the man was still in the same room as the girl. Blessed Gods, the very thought still made him gag, though his stomach was thoroughly empty by now...but angry, so angry, so very angry...he _knew_ he had to keep control of himself, and not burst in and...and do something he'd never forgive himself for no matter who he did it to...but it was so hard to wait, when he knew what was happening in that house, what had probably happened over and over in the past...what he was going to make damn sure would _never happen again_...

Finally, the man left the room for a different part of the tiny building. Seizing his chance, Demyx straightened up and darted around the house, bolting through the front door like he was running from the police. Without a word of explanation, warning, anything, he scooped the little girl up off the floor and ran back out, tearing across the fields as fast as he could, given his cargo. Unfortunately, as he realized too late he probably should have expected, the little girl started screaming, right in his ear. And then the man started shouting, and he heard a shotgun blast not nearly far enough away.

_...Next time we do this, let's take just a little more time to think things through, all right?_

"Shhh, please," he murmured to the girl, trying to run a little faster and not daring to glance behind him. "You'll be all right, I'm not gonna hurt you -" Another shotgun blast went off, and the girl screamed even louder. "Just please, stop screaming..."

"Get back here, ya son of a bitch!"

"Or else you'll go right back to him," Demyx finished, struggling to run faster, any faster, please Gods let him be fast enough to outrun the man behind him. How many shells did that shotgun hold? Had he brought any with him? Could he run and reload at the same time? Demyx was hoping the answers were two, no, and no, but if they were anything different...

"Give 'er the fuck back or I'm gonna call the cops ta haul yer dead body away! I'm gonna fuckin' KILL YA!"

Demyx knew he was running for his life now, and probably hers as well, but he just could not run any faster, not without dropping the poor girl. And she was still screaming, and the man behind them was still screaming and shouting threats, and was sure acting like he still had a shell or more left to fire... "Hush, don't worry," he told the little girl urgently, praying she would at least stop screaming for a second, but she was paying him no heed. "You'll be okay - I'm getting you away from him."

"Give 'er back, ya piece a' shit kidnapper! I'm gonna blow yer fuckin' head off! She belongs ta' me!"

Oh, belongs, was it? Like the girl was a piece of property, a slave he owned? Demyx just kept right on running, not about to let a child molester have his victim back, until a third shotgun blast suddenly ripped through the air. Suddenly, running was all but impossible, with the sudden pain in his back and side - dear Gods, the blood, he could feel the blood starting to soak his clothes and run down his skin all the way into his boot - he had to keep running, he couldn't let the man have the girl back - but he just couldn't. He dropped to the ground, twisting his body so as not to fall on top of the poor, helpless girl he'd tried so hard to save, as the shotgun-wielding man suddenly loomed overhead - and just as suddenly dropped dead.

..._Great._ Now_ she's stopped screaming._

Had _he_ done that? On an intellectual level, Demyx knew that yes, he damn well had - stopped the flow of blood through the man's body, let the heart beat uselessly until it starved of oxygen and gave up, all in those few seconds while the man was storming up to him to blow Demyx's head off with his last shell - but the shock and the terror and the pain and the suddenness of it all was stopping the information from getting through. The man had been about to kill him; the man had dropped dead instead; Demyx was so detached from his role in causing his death that part of his brain couldn't believe he'd had one. It seemed unfair, somehow; the man had deserved to die in a much uglier way than a magically-induced heart attack...

_Don't get carried away. You still have to do something with her, and in case it escaped your notice, you have just been shot and are bleeding pretty profusely..._

Very slowly, and very carefully, Demyx picked himself up off the ground, using magic to stop the blood flow for now. Vexen would be picking shot out of his back for hours...later. "All right," he said, addressing the terrified girl on the ground next to him. "Can...can you stand?" The girl nodded silently, obediently standing up and staring at him as if she thought he would start hurting her in ways she hadn't even imagined yet. "All right...let's...let's get you back home and...out of those bloody clothes. Fa-follow me." She nodded again, still completely silent, and grabbed his hand as if afraid to let it go all of a sudden, trailing him all the way back to the little trailer home. The door was still standing wide open - her father had clearly been in one hell of a hurry to catch them.

"All right, you better get your pajamas on, and leave those dirty clothes outside the door so I can clean 'em," he said as he ushered the little girl into the closet-sized room that seemed to be hers. "I'll come right back - I just have to see about him, and then call someone." The girl nodded, still completely silent as she went to the little dresser where her clothes were presumably kept - the poor thing would probably be scarred for years to come by what she'd had to see tonight, but no doubt worse by what she'd lived through before and what she would have lived through in the future, if no one had done anything. Since he wasn't in a position to adopt her, it really wasn't for him to speculate on; for now, he just staggered out of sight and made a portal back to the field where the father had been left, with his shotgun.

_Break him_, his mind whispered as he looked at the dead body, just lying there like a ragdoll. _Slash him, tear him, ruin him, destroy him, treat him like the vile worm he is. He was worthless in life; he deserves no respect in death. Do everything you ever wanted to do to these bastards. No regret. No remorse. After all, this thing is already dead..._

His eyes flashed, hard and merciless, as every vengeful fantasy crossed his mind at once, every bit of pain and humiliation he had to pay back, every cruelty, every shame, everything that had ever been done to him that he would do himself without a second thought if only the positions were ever reversed, if only he could ever have one of those bastards at his mercy so he could _make them pay_...

_Why didn't you do it to Kirk Witauer? You could have. You know you could have. You would have just had to be smart, and careful, and quick..._

_Because I know I'm not that man. Because I know I'm not that monster._

_Do you? Do you _know_?_

_...Yes. As clearly as I know what Unktehi showed me. I...am...not...that...monster._

Trembling now, from a combination of blood loss and emotion, Demyx carefully checked that the shotgun was loaded, wedged it into the dead man's mouth, and fired the last shell. Then he positioned the man's hands carefully on the stock, making sure at least one finger was close enough to the trigger to be plausible, and all the police would need to know was that the man had gone out into the field and blown his own head off with his own shotgun. There were no neighbors close enough to hear; no one would know any different. Except Demyx.

_I did what had to be done, to save my own life and that poor little girl. And I did no more than that._

Once he was back at the trailer home, he picked up the little girl's bloody clothes that had obediently been left outside her door, and made sure to give her a hug, tell her everything would be okay, and tuck her into bed with more care than the man out in the field had probably ever shown. Calling the police to tell them about the shots being fired near the house was almost an afterthought, before he portaled back to the castle to get a little medical care and try to explain what the hell had happened to him _this _time. At least he'd be able to sleep tonight.

* * *

><p>AN: Another Relic from the Seventh Sanctuary, and an expansion on a tiny drabble I wrote for a music meme on dA (in which Demyx kidnapped a child away from a child molester, was shot in the attempt, and killed their pursuer, with not much more detail than that). This version also expands some on just how broken Demyx is after his own vast experience with child sexual abuse. The damage is more obvious here than it was in "The Presence of Witnesses", but fortunately, he keeps that side of himself on a <em>very<em> short leash.

Prompt: The story starts during a crime. A character changes clothes. A character is tense throughout most of the story.


	3. Fireworks For Your Birthday

_I am such a genius._

No matter how few holidays were regularly celebrated in the Organization, as a general rule, no matter who you were or how odious your personality, there was at least one other member who would be willing to make some kind of effort to honor your birthday every year. No matter what, everyone was bound to get at least one present or card and at least a few hours to celebrate each year. Except one - the one who simply didn't know when his birthday was. And to Demyx's mind, it was an absolute crying shame that Roxas, of all people, would be the only one to never have a birthday. Well, he wasn't going to let that injustice last one day longer. Roxas was off on a mission for most of the day, and would be back later tonight - that made today the perfect opportunity to set up a surprise, with Axel's help and consent. He'd already gone out and bought a few presents, which were now wrapped and waiting under his bed, and he had the kitchen to himself and a chocolate cake recipe he hadn't tried yet. Well, he hadn't made the recipe; he'd tried the cake, though, and he didn't think Roxas could ask for a better birthday cake.

First things first - the assembly of ingredients, mostly to make sure there actually was enough of everything. There was the coffee in the fridge, that he'd asked Xaldin to save out for him...the eggs, the milk...and then the dry ingredients, the cocoa, the flour, the salt, the baking soda, the baking powder...there was the sugar...the vegetable oil, and just a little bit of vinegar, which should be enough...all right, now to get out a pan, and turn the oven on...wait a second, what was -

And in an instant, all Hell broke loose.

* * *

><p>Axel heard the banging sound, but paid no attention to it. He had no idea what it was, but his first guess involved someone knocking furniture over; whoever it was could pick it up himself. Wrapping things was never one of his special skills, and there couldn't be more than three hours left before Rox-<p>

Shit. That was the _fire alarm_.

The wrapping was left to wait, perhaps indefinitely, as Axel raced out of his room to find where the fire was and how big it was. Where was easy enough - the kitchen, a fairly obvious place - and dear God, that was _not_ a tiny little cooking fire. It was more like - "Jesus Christ, it's a gas leak!" he yelled out loud as he recognized that smell, which made Xigbar turn around and run in some completely different direction almost before Axel realized he was there at all. Frankly, Axel was grateful; the fewer people were between him and _saving the whole damn castle from burning down_, the better. The only person he wanted to see in his way was Demyx, and then only because Demyx was a more efficient firefighter than he was.

The kitchen was an inferno, choked with black smoke and raging heat that even Axel could feel; ducking his head and trying to stay below the smoke where the air was breathable, he searched out the edges of the blaze and clamped down on them, magically blocking the flames from spreading any further. Once he had it all the way contained, he tried to shrink the burn zone, and kill the flames, but as long as the gas was still flowing, it was like trying to mop up all the water from a running faucet...

And then, thankfully, the flow of gas stopped. That must have been where Xigbar went - to turn the gas off - and thank God he did, or else Axel could have been here for days trying to keep the fire down. With the gas flow stopped, he managed to shrink the fire down, banishing the flames little by little, as the smoke began to clear and the room began to cool...soon the table was no longer burning, or the chairs, or the cabinets...and then the fire was gone, while Xaldin cleared the last of the smoke out of the kitchen and Lexaeus dragged someone out from under what was left of the table.

..._Oh, God...no wonder Demyx never showed up to help with the fire..._

* * *

><p>"It's...not that bad," Demyx insisted, a little fuzzily thanks to all the painkillers. "I mean...goin' by what Vexen said...all right, the burns hurt. And all those cuts from the glass. And I cracked a vertebra when I got knocked back into the table - speaking of, that's a new addition to my lifetime list of broken bones. And he wants to keep an eye on me 'cause of the concussion. But other than that...ehhh." He shifted slightly, trying and failing to find a more comfortable position. "Tell Xaldin sorry about the kitchen. I just turned the oven on, and boom."<p>

"Hey, don't worry," Axel insisted, stroking Demyx's hair and failing to keep the worry out of his own eyes. "I mean, considering what happened, you're not hurt that bad, thank God. And seeing as this is you and all, this is nothing. As long as you're okay...compared to that, I don't honestly give a rat's ass about the kitchen."

"You never did anyway, 'cept for the food. But I bet Xaldin does." Demyx couldn't help but smile faintly, thinking about how inept Axel was in the kitchen...of course, now that he'd blown up the damn kitchen, that meant Roxas wasn't getting a cake. Fuck the worlds; why hadn't he smelled the gas just a split second sooner? Maybe he wouldn't have been able to bake a cake anyway, but at least he wouldn't have blown up the kitchen in the process... "When - when Rox gets back...my presents for him...are under my bed. Make sure he gets 'em. And...tell him sorry there's no cake. I tried. But...least he gets presents." He sighed, letting his eyes sag closed for a second - why had he even tried to plan this? He should have just suggested it to Axel and let Axel do the planning. Granted, maybe Axel couldn't plan his route out of an empty room, but maybe Axel wouldn't have blown up the fucking kitchen. "It's so stupid," he muttered, as much to himself as to Axel. "I was just trying to make him a nice cake, and then boom. There goes the whole fucking kitchen."

Axel gave him a faint half-smile, with a definite note of pity; maybe he thought the painkillers were messing with Demyx's head. Maybe they actually were and he just couldn't tell. "Come on, it's not your fault. Unless you actually did smell the gas in time and turned the oven on anyway. Could have happened to anyone, if they didn't smell the gas in time. And the longer it went on, the worse it would have been when it finally blew." He ruffled Demyx's hair again, accidentally brushing the suture line where a piece of flying glass from the oven door had nearly ripped off a chunk of his scalp; Demyx couldn't help but cringe. "Sorry about that. Of course it would just figure that Fori won't be back for three days. But still. Back to my original point. To hell with the kitchen, to hell with the cake; all that really matters is that you're gonna be okay."

"I know. But...Roxas has never had a birthday...I just wanted to make him a damn cake...I had this new recipe, even...never tried it out...and, well...fuck that, I guess." Really, Demyx knew damn well Axel was right. Considering how badly things could have turned out, especially with Fori out of the castle, he'd gotten off downright easy. Vexen had already done what he could for his back, it wasn't having any effects on his spine, his head actually wasn't feeling too bad despite the lingering ache (and the painkillers), none of his burns were that severe, thanks to his luck of winding up on the floor and mostly under the slow-burning table and _away_ from the fiercest heat, and once Fori got back, all the cuts would disappear. But he had been so damn keen on finally giving Roxas a birthday party... "It's not damn fair," he grunted, staring up at the ceiling. "Couldn't the gas have started leaking, like...tomorrow? After I got the damn cake made?"

"Demyx, to _hell_ with the cake. It's not like Roxas won't understand. He's already getting presents he's not expecting; he's not such a greedy little shit that he won't be happy enough with that. Trust me, _he'll _be happier to see that you're not that bad off than he would be with any cake. Especially when he sees the kitchen."

"I just wanted to give him a damn birthday cake! Just a simple, stupid cake, just because he's never had one before...is that too much to ask?"

"Demyx, for fuck's sake, calm down. To hell with the cake, I said."

"But...Roxas has never had a birthday cake before. He _needs_ one."

"I _know_. Not least because you won't get off the damn subject. But Jesus. Demyx. You just had...the entire _kitchen_ blow up in your face, and lived through it with no permanent damage. Focus on how unnaturally lucky you are, and _forget about the damn cake_, got it memorized?"

"But Roxas -"

"But Roxas will be much, much happier to see you in one piece than he could ever possibly be with any damn cake, got it memorized? For fuck's sake, Demyx, I keep trying to tell you - _you_ are _ever _so much more important than a damn cake. Do you understand?"

"...I know," Demyx sighed, realizing that there was no point in continuing the argument if Axel wasn't going to listen to him. He wished he could roll over without possibly injuring his back further, mostly because he usually slept on his side and was most comfortable that way, but also because he would have liked to symbolically turn his back on the redhead. "I'm also tired. Blame the painkillers...but you might as well go back and wait for Roxas. So you two can have fun and presents and go without the cake, I guess."

"Aw, come on, Demyx, don't be like that."

"_Axel_, I'm _tired_."

"All right. All right. I'll leave you alone. God knows you've had a tiring day." Raising his hand as if in self-defense, Axel backed out of the room, as if he was afraid Demyx would jump up and hit him if he wasn't fast enough. It wasn't like Demyx could do any such thing right now if he wanted to, but at least now he could get a little privacy. Sure, tomorrow he would probably realize that Axel was right and the important part was that he was still alive and not in that bad of shape, but for now, all he could think about was that _cake_.

* * *

><p>"You did well, Eight. If not for your prompt actions, the damage could have been incalculably worse. Nine could have easily been killed."<p>

"I know," Axel said - morosely, not sharply as he might have; it wasn't smart to sass the Superior. "I just - did what needed doing. I didn't know Demyx was even in here until the fire was already out." He just couldn't tear his eyes away from the gaping hole where the oven used to be - the entire thing had been blown apart, taking with it the sink, several cabinets, large chunks of the floor and wall, two chairs, and part of the table. It could so easily have taken Demyx in the process...so very easily...how had it not? Thank God it hadn't, but he could have so easily been killed, or injured much worse than he had been... In a state of shock all over again, he picked up a chunk of pipe that had been blown out of the sink during the explosion. That alone could have been fatal, if it hit someone in the head at the right speed and the wrong angle. And yet, somehow, Demyx was still alive. "I swear to God, that man is immortal," he said to himself, setting the shattered pipe down and nudging a piece of broken stone with his toe.

"Well, he needs it, with the kind of luck he has," Xaldin said offhandedly, his focus mostly on the torched cupboards, and on doing an inventory in what was left in the intact cupboards. "Presuming you're talking about Nine."

"Who else would I be talking about?" Axel said, absently picking up the broken stone he'd been kicking a second ago. "I don't believe it. Just trying to bake a damn cake, and then boom."

"Well, that explains how the flour got all over everything." Xaldin opened one of the undamaged cupboards and pulled out a stack of plates that were heavily coated with soot. "I don't know where we're going to wash these anymore...or cook, for that matter. Catering is going to get expensive...and then all these repairs, the stonework, the counters, new cupboards, new oven, new sink..."

"Quite frankly, _damn_," Xigbar said, from somewhere behind the two - he'd come in, and Xemnas had left, at some point when Axel wasn't looking. "And you forgot new chairs and a new table. I don't think we're gonna be able to repair this one. At least we don't have to replace the fridge and the microwave."

"It could have been worse," Axel said somberly, thinking of his friend lying upstairs in his hospital bed. For all he'd tried to get Demyx off the subject of that stupid cake, he couldn't get his own mind off it now. He'd just been trying to do something nice for Roxas; why did it have to end up like this? At least there was one thing he could comfort himself with... "It could have been a hell of a lot worse."

"I know," Xigbar sighed. "There's a hell of a lot of damage, but at least no one died." He was shaking his head as he drew a finger through the thick soot on the counter. "Xemnas has Lex out looking to see if any other building in this world might possibly have a useful kitchen in it, so we don't have to go off-world for everything until we get this place back together. And Vexen has just asked me to go hunt Fori down and haul him back ASAP. He just wants to make sure Demyx doesn't have any internal injuries he doesn't know about yet. I'll probably be sending Roxas to finish his mission after he gets back -"

"What?" Axel burst out, nearly throwing the piece of stone in his hand at the one-eyed gunman. "Roxas isn't even back yet - he doesn't know what's going on, he doesn't know what's happened to Demyx yet - and as soon as he gets back and files his reports, you're going to send him right back out again?" First the gas explosion wiped out Demyx's cake-in-progress before it was even properly started, and now if Xigbar was going to make it so that there was no chance of a party at all, Axel would - well, he hadn't quite made up his mind yet, but it would most likely be violent, painful, and very stupid to do to a senior member who could put a bullet through your head from basically anywhere in the multiverse.

"No. Jesus. Think for a second, Mr. Hothead McJumpsToConclusions. Even if I can find the little stinker before Roxas gets back, I'm not such an asshole I'd make him go right back out again for a three-day mission. Especially given the circumstances. Even under normal circumstances, unless it was a really urgent mission I was dragging Fori away from, I'd at least let him get a decent night's sleep first."

"...Oh," Axel said, suddenly feeling like an idiot for getting worked up over nothing, especially since the party was still going to happen. "That makes sense, I guess."

"Glad I have your approval," Xigbar said, giving him a stink eye. "I'll be back. Standing around talking doesn't make for much progress on anything." With that, he vanished instantly, presumably to whatever world Fori was in right now. Axel and Xaldin were now alone in the kitchen, and Xaldin, for all intents and purposes, seemed to be so absorbed in his inventory of the damage that he'd forgotten Axel was there.

Well, that was just as well. There was another hour before Roxas was likely to be home, and if he was good, an hour would be long enough.

* * *

><p>Demyx hated the hospital wing, not least because he seemed to spend so much time there. It was so damn <em>boring<em>, for one thing, far away from his room and isolated from his friends, out of sight and out of mind and slowly going out of his mind for sheer lack of anything better to do...while Axel and Roxas were no doubt goofing off (since Roxas almost had to be back by now) and opening presents without him and without any cake...dammit, if it wasn't for that stupid gas leak...they could have at least had _cake_. On the other hand, since from all he'd heard the refrigerator and freezer had been undamaged, they might yet find some ice cream for themselves...

No one ever made a big deal about birthday ice cream. No one really gave a damn about birthday ice cream. The cake was what mattered most. And a cake was exactly what they would not have now.

Why did the damned oven have to blow up _today_? Why couldn't it have waited until tomorrow? Axel was right, it didn't really matter in the long run, but every time Demyx thought about the cake-that-never-was, he just wanted to cry. He didn't care about his own injuries; he'd been hurt much worse in the past and lived through it. Gods knew he'd had practice dealing with pain. But that was supposed to have been Roxas's cake. Roxas's very first birthday cake _ever_, or at least since he lost his heart. And he hadn't even managed to get it _started_. It...wasn't...damn..._fair_.

All right, ow. Crying wasn't a good idea right now. Hurt too much.

"Demyx...!" Demyx barely had time to look up and respond to the sudden interloper before he was enveloped in a giant hug. That hurt too, but at least Roxas was being careful of his back - Axel must have warned him. "Axel told me what happened," Roxas said before Demyx had a chance to open his mouth. "I saw the kitchen, or what was left of it - Kingdom Hearts, it looks like a bomb hit it. How did you not get blown to bits along with it? On second thought, don't answer that..."

"Eh, it's not like it's a dangerous answer or anything...because I dunno myself." As soon as Roxas let him go, Demyx lay back down, trying to make himself as comfortable as possible. He couldn't help but smile a little, though - Axel was right; the cake wasn't all _that_ important. "Dunno what we're gonna do for food for a while, though. Microwave everything."

"Or have Axel cook it, if he wasn't so inept..."

"Maybe Xaldin could use _him_ as a stove for a while." Roxas laughed out loud at that, louder and longer than Demyx thought the joke deserved. "Come on, Rox...it's not that funny."

"I know, but just the mental image...just picturing Xaldin actually..." Roxas couldn't even finish the sentence for laughing. "'Here, just bend over so I can use your back for a burner...'"

"But then all the food would taste like Axel, you know?"

"Hey! I'll have you sons of bitches know that I taste pretty damn good!"

"Oh, come on, Ax...last time you kissed me, you tasted like whiskey and puke," Demyx said lightly, somehow feeling better than he had since the explosion despite the fact that Roxas was now right here, and there was still no damn cake. "That is just plain nasty, always and forever."

"Well, but, you know, I was drunk at the time, got it memorized?" Axel said uncomfortably, settling himself into the chair next to the bed. "So, I take it this is where the party is?"

"I guess so, if you can call this a party," Roxas said, trying to find a place to sit and finding that Axel had taken the only chair. He eventually settled for the end of Demyx's bed. "What are we celebrating? Yay, Demyx has lived through yet another disaster that would have killed anyone else?"

"Well, we could celebrate that," Axel said with a trademark sly smile, as he retrieved a bag Demyx hadn't seen him carry in from under the chair. "But really, Roxas, wouldn't you rather have a birthday party instead?"

Demyx had to force himself not to giggle at the befuddled look on Roxas's face. "Whose birthday? Demyx's was months ago, and yours isn't for months yet..."

"How about...yours?" With as much dramatic flourish as he could pull off, Axel started pulling wrapped presents out of the bag and handing them to Roxas. "Come on, don't look like that. You don't know when your real birthday is anyway, so today's as good a day as any to celebrate it. Before you say anything, trust me, we had this day picked out well in advance of Demyx blowing up the kitchen." Thankfully, he had the decency not to point out what Demyx had been trying to do when the oven blew up. At this point, it just would have made Roxas feel bad.

"But...why would you...shouldn't you...I mean..." Roxas protested helplessly, turning one present over and over in his hands without moving to open it. "This is...but..."

"Roxas, for Kingdom Hearts's sake, stop babbling and open some presents," Demyx said, no longer wasting time on trying not to laugh. "Because we're allowed to do things like that, just because we want to. Don't question us."

"Um...all right," Roxas said, still looking dazed and confused as he peeled the paper off the gift in his hands. Once he got it open, he still looked as confused as ever, though he was substantially less dazed. "...Knightmare Chess? What is...is this some kind of card game version of chess?"

"In a way," Demyx explained, trying to sit up a little and giving up on that idea in a hurry. "It's like a combination of regular chess on a regular chessboard and a card game...the cards you play change the rules of the game. You can do things like give yourself an extra king, or make your queen move like a knight in addition to her regular moves...there's a card you can play where if your opponent names a particular piece, he has to sacrifice a piece of the type he named...it's like chess designed to give Zexion a migraine, but I thought less-rigid thinkers like us could have a lot of fun with it."

"...That...actually does sound like fun," Roxas said, turning the box over in his hands. "This sounds like something even Axel might be able to play - his total inability to think ahead won't be such a liability when the rules might be totally different by his next move anyway."

"Hey!" All of a sudden, Axel was just coming into the room with another bag, though Demyx was sure he'd never seen him leave. "If I can't think ahead, how the hell would I have gotten this...?" With a slow, deliberate dignity, he set the new bag down in the chair, and carefully lifted out a white box. It was unwrapped, and largely undecorated, but the bakery label on the front told the complete story. "And tell me, what would a birthday party be without _cake_?"

* * *

><p>AN: I always wanted to give Roxas a birthday party. And blow up some part of the castle due to a gas leak.<p>

Prompt: During the story, there is an explosion. A character will prepare for a birthday, but the action goes terribly wrong. A character is resigned throughout most of the story. During the story, a character misunderstands someone.

What with the birthday preparations going horribly wrong and an explosion on the required list together, the obvious thing to do was blow up the oven while someone was trying to bake a birthday cake. Things progressed from there. Also, I found out about the many variations of fairy chess while on a wiki walk yesterday, and Knightmare Chess seemed like something the boys would enjoy.


	4. The King of the Sea

It would have saved a lot of time if Xigbar had done his homework, Demyx reflected as he sat up in his hammock and read over the map of the world. For instance, it would have been nice if Xigbar had studied this very map a little more carefully. Granted, they had an open gateway to this world; granted, there was known to be an active, long-term, highly destructive war going on in this world that had to be breeding Heartless like rabbits in a world without snakes. And it really didn't take an in-depth knowledge of the world's geography to know that the gateway and the war zone were in two completely different parts of the world. All it took was a decent map. Unfortunately, Xigbar either hadn't had a map or simply hadn't consulted it, and thanks to that minor omission, what should have been a five-day mission was now going to take two weeks plus, half of which Demyx would be working alone - it was two months' travel over land versus a week by water, and it would be downright cruel to make Axel and Roxas spend a week on a boat even in Demyx's company; they'd gone back to the castle to wait for him to land safely and collect them on the other side.

Then again, as long as things had to become so complicated and inconvenient for such a stupid reason, at least he got a nice long boat ride out of it. Just as long as he stayed in his cabin and out of the crew's way. Sure, maybe Demyx knew the sea better than all of them put together, but it wasn't like any of them were going to believe that, and trying to convince them otherwise would be ever so much more trouble than it was worth.

Then again, _he'd_ seen this storm coming pretty much all day. The sailors, for all their experience, seemed to have been taken by surprise, if the running around and yelling was anything to go by. Demyx didn't even flinch, knowing full well there was no need to panic; whether or not the sailors knew it, no ship was ever going to sink with him on board unless he damn well wanted it to. And it wasn't like he was going to get seasick no matter how rough the waves got. So while the crew panicked, he could just sit here and read the map and plan, and eventually fall asleep, in perfect serenity.

The boat rocked suddenly, hard enough to tip him out of his hammock. All right, maybe he couldn't wait out the entire storm down here; if nothing else, he'd have an easier time calming things down a little from on deck. Sure, they'd get annoyed at him being up there while they were trying to work, but that was more their problem than his...

The boat rocked again as Demyx came up the stairs onto the deck, sending him to his knees. Water ran over his hands and down the stairs, soaking his clothing, as a giant wave rolled over the deck, and a helpless shriek from somewhere over the side told him all too clearly that it had taken a crewman with it. In these conditions, there was no hope of a rescue, even from him; he'd never find the man in time...dammit, he should have said something about this storm sooner. He should have _done_ something about this storm sooner, except he hated screwing with the natural weather patterns on any world thanks to that damn butterfly effect...what would the effects of one man's death be? How would that change this world? He didn't know; he couldn't know. All he could do was try to keep it from happening again.

All right, simply willing the water around the ship to hold the hell still would be too obvious and unnatural. Treading carefully over the slick deck, he clung to whatever stable handholds he could find, willing the water to be just a _little_ calmer and the rain just a _little_ less intense, and a _little _calmer and a _little_ less intense, trying to make the storm slack off gradually enough to pass as natural, while the captain kept trying to out-shout the storm, ordering the crew to finish securing the rigging and the cannons and the non-human cargo and watch out for the next wave and would that idiot landlubber please get his ass back belowdecks before he was washed overboard -

And suddenly, just as he was pointing at Demyx and ordering him back belowdecks, he choked, and clutched at his chest, and his face started to turn an unnatural color, and he suddenly fell facedown on the deck, stone dead. Even with the storm still raging and howling around them all, the entire ship seemed to have gone very silent and very still in an instant, and all that silence and stillness was focused on one man. Demyx held his hands up helplessly, feeling like another storm was about to blow up and crush him - the captain had had a sudden heart attack, _he_ was sure of it, but in a world where science was still mostly based in superstition, would anyone else...?

"He's cursed us!"

"It's having him aboard that brought this storm down on us!"

"He's killed the Captain! Used some kind of witchcraft on him -"

"He's made the sea angry - she'll kill us all if we don't do something -"

"The sea demands a sacrifice!"

"Throw him overboard!"

"_Throw him overboard!"_

On the deck of a ship, there was nowhere to run, not when everyone on board was suddenly baying for your blood. Demyx didn't even have time to think about running before two muscular sailors grabbed him by the shoulders and started dragging him towards the railing; all struggling managed to do was anger them further and dislocate his shoulder. Vexen was _not_ going to be happy about that...oh, dear Gods, they had weapons out now. Guns and swords and knives and ropes he was sure they knew how to use to kill - being thrown overboard, he could have survived just fine, but being shot and/or stabbed first, maybe not so much... "For God and the King, put an end to this witchcraft!" a sailor shouted, as his captors dragged him all the way to the railing, just as another wave threatened.

Some little corner of Demyx's mind said _fuck this for a load of bullshit_. The impending wave loomed overhead...all the way over, arching completely over the mast and touching down on the other side of the ship, until it was completely surrounded by water above and below...and while the sailors were paralyzed with sudden terror, some of them having no idea what was happening, some of them suddenly realizing they were in so deep there was no way they wouldn't drown, he slipped his captors' grip. Gritting his teeth with pain and anger, he summoned a weapon for himself - not his sitar, which simply wouldn't produce the proper effect right now, but a very dramatic trident, made out of water but solid enough to kill a man if it came to that. While he was at it, he conjured up an entire suit of watery armor for himself, complete with a very impressive-looking helmet-crown - some of the sailors looked ready to shit themselves with terror now, which was pretty much exactly what he wanted. They deserved it. "You would kill a defenseless man in the name of your king?" he intoned, in as dramatic a voice as possible. "Your King's justice has no meaning here; he's King of the land - and _I_ am the King of the sea."

How easily hysteria could be turned around, with the right words from someone with the right appearance and the right attitude. The same part of Demyx's mind that had been the first to say _fuck this_ was now laughing at how these superstitious idiots who'd been calling for his head thirty seconds ago were suddenly ready to crawl at his feet, if only they weren't too terrified to move. It was almost hilarious; they were really convinced that he was some sort of sea-god who was more than powerful - and more than angry - enough to kill them all on a whim, when really, it was nothing but a magically-accented act he was putting on.

_It's not an act. You have that kind of power. You can kill them all. It would be easy..._

"About your duties, all of you," he ordered in a stern voice most of the Organization would never have believed could come from meek little Demyx, as the wave that had arched completely over the ship suddenly split apart in the middle and vanished. He wasn't going to kill them, even after they tried to kill him, but the act had to be maintained. Besides, it was rather satisfying to see them scurrying around in terror like that. He was willing to bet they'd never try to throw an innocent passenger overboard again, storm or no storm, curse or no curse. "Sinking this ship, right now, would inconvenience me too much to be worthwhile. Instead, I _choose_ to be merciful. And every one of you can spend the rest of your lives being grateful that they didn't end today." All of a sudden, the storm dissipated, the impressive battle armor and wicked-looking trident dissolved, and Demyx just smiled at them all, looking once more like the naive traveler who'd booked passage with them just before they left port four days earlier. But that wasn't how they were looking at him. Not anymore.

He spent most of the rest of the voyage in his cabin, well out of sight of the crew and the former first mate who was now acting as captain. Things were more comfortable all around, that way. But he couldn't resist going back up on deck sometimes, to enjoy the sunlight and the view and the salty air, and the way the crew instantly snapped to attention and treated him with the utmost respect and never quite took their eyes off him and generally acted like he might conjure up another storm and sink the ship with all hands aboard at even the slightest annoyance. Demyx acted like he didn't notice this special treatment, but he couldn't stop laughing on the inside. Here he was, just little old unimportant Demyx, with the entire crew bowing and scraping to him because he'd conjured up a bit of magical weaponry and armor and put on a dramatic act for a couple minutes.

And some little corner of Demyx's mind said _fuck that for a load of bullshit. That wasn't an act. You are the King of the sea._

* * *

><p>AN: Sometimes the right bit of acting at the right time can save your life. Sometimes it has the side effect of making you look <em>incredibly<em> badass.

Prompt: The story is set on a boat. During the story, there is a mysterious death. The story must have a water-spirit in it.

For those who don't know, Axel and Roxas aren't along because they get seasick. Especially Axel.


	5. Cigarette Break

There was nothing more annoying than a world with strict anti-smoking laws, at least partly because the only worlds advanced enough to worry about such things were advanced enough to enforce them, and more importantly, find you when you violated them. At least, back at the castle, the most Xemnas would ever do to him for smoking where he shouldn't was bitch at him and tell him not to, not arrest him, fine him, and put him in jail for a couple days, too closely watched to have a chance of just portaling out. But when you needed a cigarette, you _damn well needed a cigarette_. Didn't these law-mongering idiots get that?

Obviously not. Obviously, none of them were smokers.

If Xigbar hadn't needed a cigarette right then, he wouldn't have gone near this ugly little back alley at this time of night. It was dark and filthy and smelled like a fucking pit toilet (and probably _was_ a pit toilet, or at least used as one), and he wouldn't be surprised to take a wrong step and fall over a strung-out crackhead, or quite possibly a Heartless that used to be a strung-out crackhead. More importantly than any of that, it was a nearly ideal place to be found by people he would really prefer didn't find him, or even become aware that he was in this world again. But he'd needed a fucking cancer stick, and there was nowhere else he could go where it was actually legal to smoke - hell, he didn't know if it was legal to smoke right here, but at least no one was likely to come up and arrest him for it. There were, no doubt, way too many other people in easy reach who deserved arrest on much more serious crimes than smoking in the wrong place. And he certainly didn't intend to stay here any longer than it took to smoke one cigarette.

"That's sure as hell him. No mistaking that ugly bastard anywhere."

Too long.

"Which ugly bastard are you talking about? You looking at a mirror or something?" Xigbar said casually, still smoking his cigarette as if he didn't know who these goons most likely were. "It ain't good to talk about yourself like that, you know." Four of them, two on either side, blocking either end of the alley. Not like they could _ever_ cut off all _his_ escape routes, but he'd eat his own gloves if they weren't all armed. "Next thing you know, you're going to be doing plastic surgery on yourself with a butter knife, cursing the aliens."

"Oh, hey, check that out, fellas. The old man thinks he's funny or something." The toughs were advancing on him now, close enough to make it worth dropping the cigarette. He might need both hands free in a second. "Haven't been in town for a while, have you? It's too bad...our boss has been really looking for you...he really wanted to give you something, in return for all the _help_ you were last time you were in town." It was difficult to tell which one was doing the talking, or even whether it was only one or all four in sequence. More importantly, it was difficult to tell which ones were armed with what.

"Oh, really? Well, tell your boss I'm flattered he remembered me, and that I really _must_ catch up with him sometime later, but I just don't have the time right now," Xigbar said, well aware that he was _never_ talking his way out of this one but determined to play it cool as long as possible. The longer this took, the more chance he had to size up his opponents before things got down to business. "So if you kids would be so kind as to get out of the way, I kinda need t-"

And then, pain. Serious pain, mostly in his side, the special sort of pain that comes from someone taking a lead pipe to your rib cage. No matter how cool Xigbar wanted to keep playing it, standing and breathing took top priority right then, and they'd just become hard enough. On the plus side, now he knew what at least one of the goons behind him was armed with, but that was thin comfort when he'd just gone down on one knee in front of the rest of them. "Man, you really do think you're funny, don't you?" the apparent spokesman said, as they all towered over him. "Unfortunately for you, that's just a head start on what the boss wanted us to give you." Damn, was it hard to come up with a sufficiently badass rejoinder when you were spitting up blood. "So if you'll excuse us, once we're done with you, we got something special to deliver to him - like your dead body in - wha - what the fuck? The fuck did he -"

_Blam. Blam. Blam. Blam._

Hot damn, was it freeing to not have to worry about using your powers in the presence of witnesses. Of course, at this point, there weren't any witnesses anyway, just four dead young toughs with lead pipes and one old man with a gun. "Bet you kids thought you were the shit, didn't you," Xigbar lectured the corpses, coughing up a little more blood. "Not the sharpest tools in the shed, though...you could kill a man in one hit with a pipe like that, if you go for the head. Dead man's no threat. But no, you were gonna have fun, do it slow, beat the old bastard to death, maybe he'll beg for mercy...well, live and learn, 'cept it's too late for you shits..." He coughed again, coming up with even more blood, and decided that maybe the tough-guy lecture took second priority to not dying of a traumatic lung injury. All right, the next destination was now back to the castle, more specifically the hospital wing. Maybe Axel could be conscripted to deliver what was left of the goons to their boss's doorstep, if Vexen gave him a shot at talking to him. No one in this world knew Axel yet, he probably wouldn't mind that kind of work, and like hell would he be caught off guard smoking in an alley; the bastard didn't smoke.

* * *

><p>AN: Congratulations. You've messed with the wrong old man. You're dead! How does that make you feel?<p>

Prompt: The story is set in an alley. During the story, there is a delivery made. A character kills someone. During the story, a character is attacked.

And look! Demyx isn't getting hurt! Xigbar is, but he's badass enough to cope.


	6. Therapy Session Number One

_Hoo-ooh-ooh-ooooh-ooooh-ooooh._

Though Axel wasn't entirely sure he'd ever heard an owl like that before in his life, on some level, he knew that that was exactly what that weird noise was. Well, it couldn't really be anything else, could it? Crickets didn't sound like that, and it was about the right sort of circumstances for an owl to be around. It was broad daylight, in a forest thick enough that barely a touch of unfiltered sunlight ever made it to the forest floor, with enough dead trees left standing in his line of sight to build a log cabin with, if he was so inclined. But where was the owl? And if it wasn't an owl, what was he hearing?

_Hoo-ooh-ooh-ooooh-ooooh-ooooh._

There it was again - where was it? It sure as hell _sounded_ close by, almost overhead, but whenever he went in the direction he thought it was coming from, the next time he heard it, it was coming from somewhere else. There weren't a dozen of them, were there?

_Hoo-ooh-ooh-ooooh-ooooh-ooooh._

That one sounded like it was right behind him. Where the hell _was_ it? The odds of there being more than one seemed slim, and if there was only one and it was moving around, he should have seen it at some point - after all, it was broad daylight out -

_Wait a second. An owl in broad daylight?_

Axel blinked, and suddenly found himself awake in his own bed at the castle, far away from any dreamland forests with invisible day-active owls. Rolling over and glaring at the still-silent alarm clock, he turned the alarm off before it could sound off and rolled reluctantly out of bed. He could hear sitar music from next door, meaning Demyx was awake but not exactly moving yet; if he ever wanted first shot at the shower, now was the time. Slipping out of his own room and into the bathroom, he shut both doors quietly, trying not to draw Demyx's attention, and did a quick survey of the bathroom counter to make sure everything was where it should be and Demyx hadn't done anything like use up all the hair gel and not replace it. The hair gel was right where it should be, however, along with their individual toothbrushes and razors and shaving cream and toothpaste and deodorant and the bottle with Demyx's seizure meds and...another...pill...bottle. A pill bottle that was _not_ among the normal bathroom accessories and was therefore _not supposed to be there_. It sure as hell wasn't anything _Axel_ was taking; the only other possibility was Demyx. It wasn't an antibiotic or something else meant to be taken short-term for a specific illness; Demyx wasn't sick. Axel would be the first to know if he was. But he would have thought he would have been the first to know if Demyx had been taking _any_ new medication, even if it was just the anti-malaria pills they had to take ahead of missions to certain worlds. What on God's green Earth was it?

Feeling uncomfortably like he was reading through Demyx's private medical records, Axel picked up the new pill bottle and read the label, very carefully. Then, bottle still in hand, he carefully opened Demyx's bathroom door, wondering how the hell to start this conversation. Fortunately or unfortunately, Demyx looked up, saw the pill bottle in his hand and the look on his face, and read the whole story. At least, that's what Axel assumed, seeing as he looked ready to cry suddenly. "Demyx - I just - I wanted to ask you something," Axel said, trying not to choke, but Demyx turned away, dispelling his sitar and refusing to look in Axel's direction. "Just a simple question -"

"Take the first shower," Demyx said in a rough voice, though he had to know that had nothing to do with anything Axel wanted to ask. "We gotta get cleaned up and get to breakfast, whatever else. After breakfast, I'll talk to you about whatever you want - but please, for fuck's sake, wait until _after breakfast_."

* * *

><p>"After breakfast" found the two of them walking along an isolated river, under a bright blue sky and a thick enough forest to shield them from the sun. Apparently Demyx would rather talk there than in the castle, and it wasn't like it was a bad place, wherever it was. Now, if only Demyx was willing to actually <em>talk<em>. He'd said he would, but he wasn't speaking, and Axel didn't know how to start this conversation to save his life. But they had to talk at some point, somehow...

"So...I'm guessing what you wanted to know is why I've started taking an antidepressant along with an anticonvulsant," Demyx said finally, his soft voice shattering the still, tense air. That seemed to be all he was going to say on the subject, though - but why restate the question if you weren't going to answer it? That was exactly what Axel wanted to know, after all, but if Demyx wasn't going to say why, if he was just going to clam up again and let Axel stew, which it seemed was exactly what he was going to do... "The...official diagnosis is dysthymia," Demyx added, startling Axel as the tension shattered again. "Which is like a less-severe form of depression that lasts a lot longer - bare minimum of two years. I've actually been talking to a therapist, with Vexen's reluctant consent, and...well, that's not the only diagnosis. They - they being Vexen and the aforementioned therapist - think I've had at least one major depressive episode over the years, maybe more. Probably more. Not to mention multiple personality disorders. Funny how Vexen won't admit we have moods and personalities, but will admit we can have mood and personality _disorders._"

"Multiple-personality disorder?" Axel echoed dazedly, trying to make all of this make sense in his head - all right, he'd already known Demyx could be awful damn moody. He'd known that Demyx had attempted suicide at least twice in the past, though he'd _thought_ those were both one-off acts of desperation. He'd known that Demyx just...wasn't like other people. But that was just how Demyx _was_. It seemed _wrong_ to even try to attach a diagnosis to the way Demyx just _was_. He was fine as he was; he didn't need fixing!...but was that selfish of Axel to think so? How did Demyx feel on the subject? If it was really bothering him, badly enough that he was seeking treatment for it, how could Axel say that he didn't need any? And what the hell was that about multiple-personality disorder? How could Axel never have noticed _that_ over the years?

"_Multiple. Personality. Disorders,"_ Demyx enunciated slowly, rolling his eyes. "_Disorders_, plural. One personality, but it's thoroughly screwed up."

"You're not screwed up!"

"You're not being very objective, are you." That blunt, toneless accusation stopped Axel in his tracks, long enough for Demyx to keep talking. "They're thinking specifically of avoidant and dependent personality disorder. Meaning I _want_ to make friends and have social relationships, I want it _desperately_, but I'm so terrified of being rejected - because I feel like such an absolute loser compared to everyone else around me - that I can't ever initiate any such connections, because I'd rather stay alone than risk rejection. That's the avoidant part. And the dependent part is that once I actually manage to establish some kind of social connection, I would do anything to maintain that relationship. I never want to argue, for fear that they'll get sick of me and leave, I don't want to do anything that _might _upset them..." He choked up suddenly and broke off, looking helplessly at Axel.

_...I get it now. Back when I was still drinking, he'd just stand back and let me beat the shit out of him, doing his level best to hide it all, never swinging back even once until it finally went further than he could forgive...I get it now. Oh, God, I get it now, and I wish I still didn't..._ "Demyx...I...I didn't know," Axel stammered, feeling deeply ashamed all of a sudden. He _thought_ he'd known Demyx better than anyone else, all his weird little quirks and hangups, but how had he never put the pieces together, how had he never seen this...? "You just...never seemed that...messed up..."

"I tried to hide it," Demyx said, his voice almost inaudible. "I knew. I always knew. I was never on the same level as everyone else...I was just always _different_. Other people were always better than I was, they were stronger than I was, they were smarter than I was, they were braver, they were more charming, they were better-looking, they were better-liked...they were _happier_. I only ever had one real natural talent in my life, and a handful of debatably useful skills that I've cultivated. And the people who didn't have that talent and those skills...they didn't need them. They were good enough without them. And I was never good enough _with_ them - if I was, I'd be happy."

"...Demyx, do you have any idea how many people would trade thirty years of their life for your level of musical talent?"

"Axel, don't...don't get me started on that train of thought." Silence fell, dead silence; even the birdsong and rustling leaves seemed to be miles away. The world had been reduced down to two men and a painful truth.

_I thought I knew everything there was to know about him. Now I'm wondering if I know him at all._

"But...you're still the same guy, right?" Axel asked helplessly, trying to break the silence and find one point of certainty in a suddenly very uncertain world. If that was true, then everything was still true; if that wasn't true, then nothing was true. "I mean...deep down, where it really matters...there's still the same old Demyx in there somewhere, right?"

"I don't know," Demyx groaned, sitting down on a dead log and covering his face with his hands. "The same old Demyx is the most messed-up son of a blank spot on a birth certificate in the worlds. I've lost track of who he really is."

"Demyx -"

"I mean it, Ax. It's probably safe to say I've been sick as long as you've known me. Probably longer. Long enough that...I don't know who I'd be if I wasn't sick."

"Come on -"

"Maybe it's too late. Maybe it's gone on so long that...there _is_ no me that isn't sick."

"Demyx - please - just -"

"Maybe I can't ever get better."

"Demyx!" There was no response this time; Demyx just started sobbing helplessly, ignoring Axel completely even when he gave him a hug. "Come on, man, knock that off...you're gonna make me cry in a second. Stop it."

"For fuck's sake, Axel!" That outburst surprised Axel enough to make him let go. "I...I just...just...go away, for fuck's sake! Leave me alone! Just...just leave me to my stupid little fucked-up self..."

...Now what was Axel supposed to do? It didn't take much thinking back to think of any number of times when he'd heard Demyx talk about himself like he was worthless, or messed up, or like he hated himself in general. For all the times he'd managed to stop him saying things like that...had he ever made him stop believing it? To pose the question was to know the answer - no, he never had. But...he'd thought he had more influence over Demyx than that...he'd thought Demyx actually listened to him and cared what he said...

_You can't blame yourself for this. On some level, you always kind of knew it too - he's not all right in the head._

_But my God, there were so many things I should have done better...I should have stopped drinking years before I actually did...I should never have lost my patience with him...I should never have been pushy, I should never have been short, I should never have made fun of him for anything..._

_Would it have made a difference? Or was it already too late?_

"Demyx...I'm so sorry."

"Shut up. It's not your fault. It's just...the way I am."

"Demyx, I...I don't know what to believe anymore."

"I'm sorry."

"Now don't _you_ start." There was no response to that, creating a silence in which Axel could contemplate that same ugly question again - who was the real Demyx? The guy he'd been living next to for six years, easily one of the best friends he'd ever had - was that the real Demyx? Was that anything close to something that could be called _a_ real Demyx? Or was it all just a lie, a mask to cover what was left of a broken man? Did even Demyx know?

"...Demyx...I don't believe it's as bad as all that." The words had been hard to find and hard to say, but as soon as they made it out into the open, Axel knew that they were what needed to be said. Demyx only looked up at him in confusion and anguish, so Axel sat down on the log next to him, one arm around his shoulder. "I just...don't believe that the guy I've known for so long can't be at least some part of the real Demyx, whoever that is. And, Demyx...whatever you might think about that person...I know he's a good man."

Demyx just stared up at Axel, as if he hadn't been speaking English, Hindi, or any other language Demyx actually understood. Then he hiccuped, and giggled slightly, and suddenly started to laugh hysterically. All Axel could do was sit back and let him, though it was better than him starting to cry again. "I...I'm sorry, Ax," he choked, as he finally started to regain control of himself. "It - it's just...you know how I always call Roxas a good kid? And - he took me to task once over it, 'cause he said it - it sounded like I was damning him with faint praise or something, and - and I had to explain to him what I meant by it, and - and when you said that, it just - it reminded me..."

"Got you laughing again. That's all I care about right now," Axel said, giving Demyx a light punch in the shoulder. "Come on. I know you _think_ you're worthless and stupid and all that shit, but I also know you're _not_. You just have to learn to _believe_ that...among other things. Because I also know I've been telling you that for years already."

"Yeah, you kind of have. And it just never sank in, because...dysthymia." Demyx sighed, his brief good mood fading away as quickly as it had come. "Actually, they're not a hundred percent sure it might not be cyclothymia, which is like a milder but longer-lasting version of bipolar disorder. Depakene is a mood stabilizer, not just an anticonvulsant, so if that was the case, it could be covering it up..."

"Demyx, I don't care," Axel blurted out, unable to stop himself. "Really...what does it matter what the exact name of whatever the problem is might be? All I really care about is...I want you to be okay. For God's sake, for once in your life, I want you to be happy with yourself for more than a few fleeting moments at a time, while you are sane and level. Right now, that's all I want."

Demyx looked like he was about to say something, but stopped, and paused for a moment to think. "It...it's probably a sign of how long I've been living with these problems that...actually thinking positively about myself seems wrong. Vain and selfish and all that...but...blessed Gods, I don't know what to think anymore. I mean...well...look at _you_, for example. I mean, you're perfectly aware of...at least _some_ of your shortcomings, but on the whole, no matter how much you might not like certain aspects of yourself, you...you like yourself in general. Why does it seem wrong for _me_ to be like that?"

"Dysthymia."

"I asked for that answer, didn't I." Demyx sighed, leaning on Axel's shoulder, and suddenly Axel felt like he was dealing once again with the frightened, hostile kid from so many years ago, the one he'd practically had to teach how to open up and be friendly and ever trust people again. "...Thanks, Ax. Thanks for putting up with me."

"On the whole, it's been a pleasure. And I mean that sincerely."

"Thanks," Demyx repeated, closing his eyes as if trying to distance himself from the worlds at large. "...You know who my first positive male role model was?" he suddenly asked, seemingly out of nowhere.

...Well, now how was Axel supposed to answer that one? He knew Demyx had grown up without his father present - he was pretty sure Demyx didn't even know who the man was - and Demyx had never mentioned knowing either grandfather. The only male teacher Axel knew of him having was a child molester. And he sincerely doubted that Demyx had had any positive influences or anyone worth looking up to while he was living on the street - if he had, he probably wouldn't have lost his heart so young. "...I have no idea," he finally said, having run out of possibilities.

"It was you." Axel just about fell over, when he heard that - _him?_ Seriously? He was supposed to be a - a role model - _the primary_ role model - for someone who was...maybe three or four years younger than he was? It was ridiculous...God, if he'd been aware of that, he would have stopped drinking as soon as Demyx joined the Organization. "I mean it. I was never exaggerating when I told you that you were the first friend I ever had. Remember I told you that avoidant personality disorder makes you isolate yourself from everyone so you wouldn't run the risk of being rejected? Back when I joined, I was the living definition of that. But you - you weren't having any of that. As determined as I was to be a frigid, antisocial bastard, you were even more determined to make friends anyway, no matter what it took. And...I have to say...as messed up as I am right now...if you hadn't done that...I would be a complete basket case."

Now Axel completely did not know what to say to that. He was suddenly feeling the weight of a massive responsibility he hadn't even known he'd had for the past several years - that of keeping Demyx sane and stable, or at least as sane and stable as possible. If, way back when, he'd decided to hell with it, the frigid little bastard wasn't worth the effort...Jesus, what kind of person would Demyx be now? So socially withdrawn that he never spoke to anyone without being addressed and kept to himself at all times unless someone sought him out? Gone all the way through "shy" and "antisocial" right to the other side at "hostile to the worlds", ending up completely heartless in the figurative as well as the literal sense? Dead by his own hand? Axel was prepared to believe any of the above, and he was about ready to cry just thinking about the possibilities. One easy, understandable mistake on his part could have destroyed Demyx's life completely, and he would never have known that things could have been any different... "Sorry," he said, since Demyx seemed to be waiting for an answer. "Just...struck by the idea that all this responsibility for years has been on the shoulders of the man they call Captain Tactless."

"Oh, come on, Ax...don't you start getting down on yourself. I have enough trouble with that. Obviously."

"I was just thinking...if I hadn't stuck it out...if I'd given up on you..."

"It would have been my fault, for being such a little pisswad as I was back then, and by extension the fault of all those people whose actions had the combined effect of making me that way. But you _didn't_. That's the only part that matters anymore. You didn't give up on me. You didn't give up."

Axel couldn't help but give Demyx another hug, hearing that; it was easier than trying to come up with the right words to say. All he could think of was an old cliche that suddenly didn't seem so stupid anymore - _to the world, you may only be one person, but to one person, you may be the world_. "I'm glad I could help," was what he finally came up with to say. "But God, Demyx, the way I've treated you sometimes -"

"Axel, don't dwell on that, please, or else I will too and then bad things will happen," Demyx said, looking ashamed suddenly. "I doubt there's anything you can tell me that I don't already know, and...it's in the past. I don't want to dwell on it more than I have to. I've already hashed it to death in therapy."

"...All right." Would Axel _ever_ stop feeling bad about it? Most likely not. If Demyx wanted him to shut up about it, then he would, but it hurt to think that maybe he was only being forgiven because of Demyx's mental illness or personality disorders...or that his behavior had helped bring about at least some of Demyx's problems...but what could he say now? "I...guess it's good that you're actually getting these dealt with," he said finally, feeling just how awkward it was. "I mean...better get it treated now than later."

"This is later," Demyx said, scowling down at his feet. "You know, though, I...before now, I...I never would have thought that...I could have a conversation like this with...with anyone. I mean...sure, I talk to my therapist, but...not like this. It's not like she and I have already known each other for years, or like she's already been a big influence on me and the way I am. There's not that...connection, like we have. At one and the same time, it's harder to talk to you, because...well, it's...scarier. I mean...trying to tell someone that you've known for years that...you have problems like these...and the problems themselves don't help. I'm afraid that if...I say one thing wrong, then...you're gonna decide I'm too messed-up to deal with and give up."

"What? Aw, come on, Demyx. You know me better than that."

"On one level, I do...on a different level, I can't. I just can't shake those fears - that if you learn a little too much about me, you'll realize what a piece of shit I am and reject me and I'll be left alone...and that how it's meant to be, I'm not good enough to associate with other people, and I might as well get used to being alone." Demyx looked up at Axel again, and Axel could read the fear and apprehension in his eyes - _that's not going to happen, right?_ they asked him silently. _You're not going to reject me and leave me alone, are you? Please tell me you won't...please don't leave me alone..._

And, almost as soon as Axel managed to follow that train of thought to its logical conclusion, Demyx burst into tears again, grabbing the front of Axel's robe as if he thought Axel _would_ get up and leave if he didn't hold onto him physically. "It's all right," Axel said, hugging Demyx tightly, and squishing his face into his chest in the process. Then again, Demyx didn't really seem to object. "Cry all you want, little brother. I'm not gonna think any worse of you for it. And I'm never gonna turn my back on you."

"Th-thank you," Demyx choked, when he was capable of coherent speech again. "S-sorry for...m-making such a f-fool of myself..." He straightened up a little, rubbing his face with the back of his hand, still looking embarrassed. "...I think I got snot on your robe."

"...Demyx, right now, do you think I actually care about that?" Axel said loudly, mostly to silence that part of his own brain that immediately went _ew, snot_. "Considering what we've been talking about, you think I care about a little snot?" To emphasize the point, he gave Demyx a real rib-cracking hug, that hopefully left absolutely no room at all for doubt. "Anyway...feel like going back to the Castle yet, or..."

"No." Demyx's tone left no room for argument. "First off, I think we could hang around here and talk for days yet. Until lunch, at least. Second, even if we ever run out of things to talk about, I'm probably going to need to hang around here for a while yet just to get my head back on straight - or at least as straight as it gets."

"Fair enough." After a moment of silence, Axel stood up and brushed various bits of debris off his clothes; Demyx took the hint and followed suit, and they abandoned their log seat and resumed their walk, with Axel keeping one arm around Demyx's shoulder. "So...overall, do you feel better? Than you did this morning, at least?"

"Well...it's actually nice not to have to worry about keeping it secret anymore," Demyx said, smiling a little bit. "I knew I shouldn't have left that bottle in the bathroom, but I thought it was the only way I'd remember to take it, by leaving it with the Depakene...and if you hadn't found it, I know I would never have mentioned anything to you. So...I guess it's good that you found it."

"You're not going to tell anyone else, are you?"

"I...I don't know if I'll even tell Roxas. I mean...Roxas doesn't see the worst of me as often as you do. I don't know if he'd understand as well as you do."

"...If you decide you do want to tell him, do you want me to help?"

"...Really, Captain Tactless?...No, if I tell him, I figure I owe it to him to tell him myself. It's the least he deserves...what the hell is that sound?"

"I have no idea. It could be an owl."

"An owl in broad daylight?"

"I've heard of weirder." The two of them walked silently for a few minutes; Axel wasn't sure what was going on in Demyx's head, but frankly, he was just grateful that Demyx had stabilized enough to still trust him. "Well, even if you want to tell Roxas yourself, do you want me to...I dunno, hang around and provide moral support or something?"

"Axel..." At least Demyx laughed at that one. "Come on, man; you really want in on this, don't you. But no - if and when I tell him, I want it to be in private."

"All right, fair enough."

"I...think I _can_ do it, if that's what you're worried about," Demyx added, glancing back at Axel as if still seeking his approval. "I...I don't know why, but...there's, like, two people in the entire multiverse who just...make me feel like a better person just by being around them. Like...when I'm around them, I don't feel like such a class-A fuckup or worthless son of a bitch as I do pretty much the entire rest of the time. Roxas is one of them. And...I think as long as I can talk in private, I can work up the nerve to tell him without help. So don't worry."

"...I'm not one of them?" Axel asked mostly to tease, keeping a smile on his face so that Demyx knew he didn't feel hurt or annoyed.

"Sadly, no. However, you've already demonstrated that you're willing to put up with the worthless class-A fuckup son of a bitch, so it works out."

"All right...you said there were two, though, so if one is Roxas and the other's not me, who's the other one?"

It was a good thirty seconds before Demyx answered, with a weak chuckle. "Can't seem to shut my mouth, can I?" he asked the air, and when the air had no response, he remained silent for another long spell. "...I don't know his real name," he finally admitted. "I'm not completely sure even _he_ knows his real name. He calls himself the Doctor."

* * *

><p>AN: Thus is established the canonicity of not only the mental health issues I've always known Demyx to have, but also the events of "Writing on the Wall". No, Demyx did not proceed to run off with the Doctor and tour the vast expanses of space-time for a subjective year or two before returning to the castle the day after he left; the Doctor was still in his post-"Journey's End" funk and not looking for a new companion. Which isn't to say that the two won't meet again.<p>

Prompt: The story ends on a river. During the story, there is a dramatic discovery. The story must have an owl at the beginning. A character will wake up.

You wouldn't believe how hard it was to get Demyx to start talking. And then he and Axel would not freakin' shut _up_. Actually, he's not the only member who could use a little therapy. Marluxia, for instance - the definition for narcissistic personality disorder could have been written with him in mind.


	7. And So Is Lola

_And they all laugh when I say that music is better than sex..._

Well, it wasn't Demyx's problem what the rest of the Organization prioritized, but damn, they didn't know what they were missing. Music wasn't so messy, for one thing. There was no need to try to persuade a girl you'd never met before to join you, and it _was_ just as much fun by yourself. If you were going to pay for either, good music was generally cheaper. Music wasn't going to bitch at you for not adding it to your cell phone contacts immediately, or call you in the middle of the night two months later to say that it was pregnant and you may or may not be the father. And music lasted a _hell_ of a lot longer.

And blessed Gods, it felt even better.

As the orchestra played its last triumphant finale, and the conductor turned around and bowed, the audience exploded with applause. Demyx was the first one on his feet, clapping so hard it felt like he might injure his hands if he didn't let up. He didn't let up, even when his hands started to sting - that had been brilliant, absolutely brilliant. He wished someone had recorded this concert so that he could buy a copy and have it forever...well, for all he knew, someone had. He'd have to check back in the future to see. But right now, unfortunately, he had to get going. Much as he would have liked to hang around, and maybe talk shop with the composer whose latest work had premiered tonight, he had somewhere else to be right now. Hopefully he could find the bar the others had gone to, within a reasonable amount of time, without having to resort to a taxi he'd be hard-pressed to afford right now.

Fortunately, he did manage to find what he thought was the right one a reasonable walk away, and Xigbar waved at him from the bar counter as he came in just to confirm it. "What's up, dude?" he said as Demyx slipped onto the barstool next to Axel. "How was the show?"

"Orgasmic," Demyx said as he picked up a menu, which answer earned a snort out of Xaldin. "Thanks for picking a vegetarian-friendly joint," he added, with a full dose of sarcasm, as he looked the menu over and found burgers, hot wings, chili fries, and many other meat-laden varieties of man-food. "I'm starving, so it's nice to just open up the menu and see vegetarian options everywhere."

"Well, they have fish and chips, veggie burgers on the DIY menu, and mozzarella sticks, not to mention about twenty minutes before the kitchen closes," Axel said cheerfully, most of his attention on the dance floor. "So if you're hungry, you'd better order fast."

"Fine, fine, I guess I'll take whatever tiny sop I can get thrown my way," Demyx grumbled, as he looked over the menu to confirm that everything Axel had mentioned was actually there before flagging down a bartender. "If the kitchen's still open, can I get a...one of your DIY burgers, with the veggie burger, regular bun, blue cheese, baby greens, caramelized onions...chipotle mayo sounds good, and - what?" he demanded, since there seemed to be no other way to make Axel stop elbowing him.

"Don't get snippy with me," Axel sniffed, gesturing at the far side of the room. "I just thought you'd want to know that that tall black girl over there hasn't taken her eyes off you since you came in."

Demyx looked, and saw that there was indeed a tall black girl over there - not only tall (very tall, and she didn't need the stiletto boots to help with that), but stunningly pretty, and she was definitely giving him a _very_ interested look. Giving her a quick smile, to let her know that he'd seen her and was interested right back, he turned back to finish his order. " - Plain fries on the side, and try to hurry, because I think I'm going to need to eat fast. And a tequila. Lime but no salt."

"Any particular brand, or is the well tequila okay?"

"You have Patron Silver? I'll take that..."

"Since when were you a tequila connoisseur?"

"You know, Xaldin, I have a lot of hobbies and interests that you don't know about." While the bartender poured his drink, Demyx looked back to make sure the tall girl was still there, and still looking at him. Just because music was better than sex didn't mean it was the only thing he was interested in.

He drank the tequila at lightning speed, ignoring the burn completely, ate the burger almost too fast to taste it, and paid the bill without really caring how much it came to. Then he made a quick trip to the bathroom to make sure his hair looked all right and he didn't have anything stuck in his teeth - the guys would surely laugh at him for fussing like a girl, but that was more their problem than his - and gathered up his full measure of tequila-induced confidence to get back out there and talk to that girl. "...Hi," was his stunningly witty opening line. "What's your name?"

"Call me Carla." She had an unusually deep, raspy voice, even given how tall she was; Demyx guessed that she was a smoker, but she didn't smell like cigarettes. "How 'bout you, honey?"

"Dennis." It was just one of a list of close-enough names that he pulled out whenever someone asked him for one that didn't need to know his real name; as long as he kept track of which name he'd given which person, the system worked pretty well. "Anyway - can I b-"

"Aw, why waste time on that when we could be dancin', honey?" And before he could finish his sentence, Demyx found himself being dragged out to the dance floor. He was too surprised to resist even if he'd wanted to, but he couldn't help but notice that Carla was a lot stronger than he'd expected. _Girl_ was definitely not the right term for her; _woman_ was looking more accurate. Anyway, the music was playing, the beat was strong, and he had a willing partner; that was more than he usually got. It was time to own the dance floor.

Demyx was not the world's most confident guy, which tended to put a massive crimp in his love life; lacking the confidence to do the approaching himself, even with the help of tequila, he tended to wait for girls to approach him, and they generally approached Axel instead. But tonight, one had finally taken a shine to him without being shot down by the redhead first (that he knew of), and not only that, she was a fantastic dancer. Demyx knew he was a damn good dancer himself (and it took a _lot_ of positive reinforcement from others to make him believe _anything_ good about himself), but Carla was not just keeping up with him, she was making him work to keep up with her. This was a better workout than he'd ever gotten at the castle gym, not to mention a hell of a lot more fun. And man, if this was how she moved on the dance floor...if he didn't do anything to screw this up...tonight was going to be a _damn_ good night.

There was something...kinda funny about Carla, though. The way she moved - especially her legs and hips - there was just something kind of _off_. Maybe it was the stiletto boots; he could completely see how five-inch heels could mess up your groove. Putting that thought out of his head, he tried to lose himself in the music and dance again. No stupid hang-ups were going to mess up his night.

The only problem was, the longer the two of them kept dancing, the more little things like that started to bother him. The way she moved was the first clue, but then other things started coming together and making sense in a way he'd rather they didn't. Things like her height. Her strength. Her voice. Her...unusually blocky figure. The fact that, much as he tried to dismiss it as his imagination, he could almost swear he'd felt something when they were getting up close and personal that he really preferred his dance partners did not have.

Finally, he just couldn't take it anymore. "All right, I'm beat," he said, stumbling back to the bar - where, not coincidentally, the light was better than it was anywhere else in the room - and dropping onto his former seat. "If I try to dance anymore, my legs are going to fall off. I need a rest."

"Aw, Dennis honey, don't tell me I wore you out," Carla said with a throaty chuckle, leaning in close to him, and giving him the best look at "her" he'd had all night. There was definitely a let's-go-somewhere-more-interesting look in "her" eyes, but it was something else on "her" face that had most of his attention. It seemed that _woman_ wasn't exactly the appropriate term either. "Gettin' a little too crowded in here anyway, isn't it?"

And that was the lead-in to the invitation, no doubt. Where was Axel? Someone whose appearance was that distinctive was hard to miss even in a crowded and dimly-lit bar, and Demyx eventually saw him with a frustrated look on his face, watching a blond girl run out with a cell phone and a distraught look. "You've worn me out completely," he pleaded with a weak chuckle, keeping an eye on Axel in case he moved. "But you still seem to have energy to spare, and my red-headed friend over there seems to have just lost his partner...why don't you go talk to him? I bet you two would get along great..." Carla sniffed and straightened up, looking offended by this clear dismissal, and strutted off towards Axel as if trying to enunciate the fact that "she" was done with Demyx. Which, quite frankly, was all right with him.

"...Dude, what the hell was that?" Xigbar demanded, as Demyx flagged down the bartender for another tequila. "For all the times you bitch about how you can't get anything Axel hasn't turned down first - a chick finally acts interested in you to begin with, and you pawn her off on Axel! What gives?"

"Well, I just figured Axel would like her better," Demyx said, unable to keep himself from smiling slightly. "I mean, I can be pretty fussy about my dance partners - for one, I generally insist that they actually be female. And Axel doesn't necessarily."

Xigbar and Xaldin just stared blankly at him for several long moments, until Demyx started to wonder if he had to spell it out for them. Then, all of a sudden, they both cracked up. "Oh, that would just figure," Xaldin said, shaking his head and looking back at where Axel and Carla were now dancing quite enthusiastically. "Good thing you caught onto that before, uh, _she_ took you home."

"Well, if those two keep going like that, that's how Axel's gonna find out," Xigbar said, barely able to stop laughing long enough to talk. "You didn't warn him, did you?"

"Come on, when the hell would I have had a chance to warn him? I didn't know where he was until I needed to point 'her' in his direction," Demyx said, grinning more broadly now as the bartender handed him his second drink. "Then again, like I said, Axel's door swings both ways anyway. Even if he's already figured it out - and he might have; 'she's' got a freakin' five-o'-clock shadow - he's not going to care." Then, from pure spontaneous high spirits and because it seemed to fit the situation, he started to sing out loud. "'Cause I'm not the world's most masculine man, but I know what I am and I'm glad I'm a man and so is Lola..." That made both older men laugh out loud, and Demyx couldn't help but join them. Sure, he'd no doubt be sleeping alone tonight, but he didn't care. It had already been a good night.

* * *

><p>AN: The only reason this happened is that the one rock station in town happened to play "Lola" once too often one night. If you're not familiar with the song, go find it on YouTube and listen to it; it will help you get the joke.<p>

Prompt: The story starts during a concert. The story must have a pretender in it. During the story, a character has someone make a meal for them.


	8. The Revenge of Edmy Ghatori

It was the end of the school day at Public School 81. Most of the children were running out the door enthusiastically, towards waiting buses or their parents' cars, or simply in the direction of home if they lived close enough. Within a long but not unreasonable walk from here was an apartment building, shabby and low-rent but not totally unlivable, where an old Indian woman and her only grandson had spent eight years, until her sudden death. Several children were going that route, but the man on the corner paid them no attention; they weren't what he was looking for. They were all cheerful, waving goodbye to their friends and running off home to see their families, playing tag and racing each other as they ran. But he knew there was one in every class. And he knew that man still worked here.

There; that had to be her. Even from this distance, he could tell she had heterochromia - one eye was very pale blue, and the other very dark brown. Not only that, she had that...aura, around her. She looked...sunken into herself, as if she'd given up on even trying to socialize with the other children; she certainly wasn't waving cheerfuly at her friends or playing tag with them on the way home, and she looked like she hadn't smiled in three days or more. And look...there he was, showing her out with positively tender care, looking downright fatherly. Fatherly. Ha. She looked like she wanted to get the hell away from him, but was too scared to take the initiative and run. Boy, did he know how that felt.

Well, she was now safely on her bus. Looking bright-eyed and innocent, as if he was someone's older brother here to pick them up in lieu of their parents, he strolled casually across a guarded crosswalk, opposite a stream of students walking home, and right on into the building. It had been over ten years since he'd last set foot in the building, but he still remembered the way to Mr. Greenberg's room. Given how often the room and the man featured in his nightmares, it wasn't like he'd ever forget.

The man was still in there, sitting at his desk writing something, with his coat on, as if he was just finishing up one last thing before heading home. To Demyx's mind, that was all to the good - he'd have hated to miss him. He only gave one cursory knock on the door before letting himself in. "Afternoon, Mr. Greenberg," he said, unable to keep a faint smirk off his face. Honestly, at this point, it didn't matter all that much. "You may or may not remember me, but I'm a former student of yours. I just wanted to stop in and say hi."

The teacher glanced up at him, regarding him with those mild, thoughtful eyes that no one could believe any evil of. No one, that is, except the ones who knew better. "I don't often forget any of my students, but I can't seem to recall you," he said, raising his reading glasses for a better look. "Maybe if you told me your name, I could place -"

"Edmy Ghatori."

Mr. Greenberg jumped as if he'd been shot, and his mild eyes widened with sudden fear. Clearly, he'd heard about Kirk Witauer, and unlike Witauer, he'd known Edmy Ghatori's real name all along, just as well as Demyx had always known his. If he thought Demyx was now coming after him for the same reason he'd gone after Witauer - well, let him; he'd be right. "That's - impossible," he said finally, once he regained a little composure. "You don't look a thing like him."

"Oh, really? How so not? And don't mention the skin. I _know_ that."

"Um..." And Mr. Greenberg was apparently stuck for an answer. As Demyx knew damn well, there was no answer, or at least no answer that couldn't be explained away by time and fortune. Pointing out scars wasn't going to cut it. "...You have hearing aids. I know very well that Edmy never did."

"I lost pretty much all my useful hearing at the age of eighteen. And thank you _so _much for pointing those out." Demyx's smirk was widening as he approached the desk, he knew it, and he didn't care. He'd never felt powerful in this man's presence, and he'd never felt _this_ powerful in his life. "Let me counter with an argument in my favor - if I wasn't Edmy Ghatori, if I didn't know who you are and what you are in a way and to a level of detail that only someone who knew as much about you as Edmy Ghatori did, what am I doing here now?"

"You're bluffing, is what. You're trying to scare me by accusing me of things I'm not guilty of. The real Edmy Ghatori wouldn't do that. He was a very sweet boy."

"Oh, _sweet_, is it. Sweet, and shy, and funny-looking, and friendless, like that poor little girl with the mismatched eyes I saw you escorting to her bus, with no one to confide in, and no one to tell what exactly you're doing when you so kindly let these poor bullied kids stay in the classroom and help you out instead of making them go out to recess..." Mr. Greenberg swallowed hard, and Demyx knew he had him. "Then again, they weren't supposed to tell anyone anyway," he added, stroking the older man's face in a way that might have seemed frankly tender if not for the downright sadistic smile on his face. "Like you always said, there could be a lot of trouble if anyone found out, so let's just keep it our little secret, shall we?"

Mr. Greenberg's eyes were wide with fear now, and beads of sweat were visible on his pale face. "I - I don't know what you're talking about," he protested, as if he thought he could deny his way out of the truth. "There's - there's nothing wrong with keeping these students inside instead of sending them out to the playground - they'll only be pushed around and bullied out there! If you knew how cruel bullies can be -"

"Mr. Greenberg, there is _nothing_ I do not know about how cruel one human being can be to another," Demyx hissed, his eyes narrowing into ice-hard slits for a moment, before that sadistic smile slid back into place. "I do have to wonder, though, now I have an adult perspective on things, how wise it is to focus your anti-bullying attentions not on, say, stopping the bullies, but on keeping their victims safe...safely alone with you, under the supervision of no adult but yourself, with no one else knowing where they were...it's not like anyone would come looking for them or for you...you were too clever for that..." He sat down on the edge of the desk, still stroking Mr. Greenberg's face almost lovingly, as a definite purr crept into his voice. "I have to say, though...sometimes, I really miss those recesses in the supply closet. Especially now that I have an...adult perspective on things. That's actually why I'm here...what would you say to one more session in there? For old time's sake? No one has to know..." Purring like a cat in heat now, Demyx took hold of the older man's necktie and tugged on it, pulling him closer, until he had to be close enough to feel Demyx's breath as he whispered. "Your new favorite student doesn't have to know. The other teachers don't have to know. Your wife doesn't have to know. It can be our little secret, just like old times. Except this time..._I_ wanna be the teacher."

It took Mr. Greenberg a good ten seconds of gasping like a fish to ever find his voice again. "No. I - I - absolutely not. I am not interested. You're insane."

"I can't help it. I was molested by a teacher when I was ten. That does shit to you." Demyx's purr was almost a predatory snarl now, as he slid off the desk and into Mr. Greenberg's lap, still holding his necktie. "Don't worry. Just trust me. Even if it feels wrong at first, I know you're going to like it." He was practically salivating now, just anticipating how it would be to have the man who'd destroyed his life - who'd taken his virginity at an age when most kids didn't understand what virginity was, who'd taught him once and for all that no one who wasn't his grandmother could ever be trusted, who he considered most responsible for making him the way he was now - to have him and have revenge on him, to finally be the one with all the power in the equation and the one to do as he damn well pleased...he licked his lips involuntarily, picturing Mr. Greenberg trapped and helpless in the closet, while Demyx whispered those same old words in his ear, the same ones Mr. Greenberg had whispered to him so often..."_Remember, don't tell anyone; it's our little secret..._"

_And then what?_

...And then what?

And then Demyx would be the one who had to look in the mirror every night, and know who he was and what he'd done, and that he now had to live with that person and that deed - or take a page out of Kirk Witauer's book, and decide that he simply couldn't live like that. Even if no one else ever found out, Demyx would still know. "Actually, fuck yourself," he said, letting go of Mr. Greenberg's tie and backing off with a snarl; he was disgusted with himself now, but determined to save face and make sure he accomplished his actual goal. "I wouldn't set foot in that closet again if you paid me, and like hell do I want to dirty myself with you one more time in my life."

Mr. Greenberg was clearly shaken to the core; even if Demyx wasn't going to do as he threatened, it was clear now that he damn well could if he wanted to, and that was worth almost as much. "Then...what are you doing here?" he demanded, his voice trembling as much as his hands.

"What the fuck do you think I'm doing here? I'm going to do the same thing I did to Kirk Witauer. I'm going to take our 'little secret' and share it with everyone who needs to know," Demyx said, his eyes and voice hardening to a razor edge as he tried to stave off the monster in the back of his mind that demanded a much more intimate vengeance. "Come on. You got plenty of paper there. Start writing. In pen, please. Complete confessions, to everyone who has a right to know. Let's start with your wife. Your children, if they don't already know firsthand. The principal. The superintendent. Oh, and how about all the parents of all your favorite students, the poor bullied kids that you kept inside for recess because they'd be safer that way."

"Y-you're insane." In response, Demyx slammed a sheet of paper onto the desk in front of Mr. Greenberg and forced a pen into his hand. "You're a-a monster."

"If I am, you made me that way. Now get writing." Demyx could feel something tearing inside his chest, reminding him that even if he wasn't a monster he damn well had the capacity to be one, as was just demonstrated. But he couldn't focus on his own flaws now; instead, he tried to focus all the rage and pain and poison inside himself and assign it a source - the man in front of him. "And make sure you sign your name to each one. Remember, if you don't put your name on it, you don't get credit for it..."

* * *

><p>Trying to predict where Nine went, when he wasn't at the castle and wasn't on a mission, was like trying to predict where the wind would blow a leaf when you didn't know which way the wind was blowing to begin with. He was every bit as likely to sneak off to the wealthiest part of a major metropolis for a classical concert as he was to sneak off to a beach to surf, or to Twilight Town to hang out and shop. The only certainty was that, sooner or later, he was bound to turn up again.<p>

It was just...a bit of a surprise for him to turn up at the kitchen table, looking like he'd just woken up from a nightmare that he still wasn't sure wasn't real, and staring at a newspaper as if it was the main villain. Lexaeus couldn't help but look at the newspaper himself, in search of some clue; the first headline that caught his eye was _Schoolteacher's disappearance possibly linked to molestation confession letters_. If that was the headline Nine was reacting so strongly to, that alone told enough of a story to demand careful handling. "Do you mind if I read this?" he asked before even touching the paper. If Nine didn't even want him to read the full article, well, then, he wouldn't, and live with his curiosity unsatisfied. But Nine looked miserable, and Kingdom Hearts knew he already had enough problems.

Nine didn't even glance in his direction as he answered. "Sure, go ahead," he grunted, his voice barely audible. It was difficult to tell whether he'd even understood the question, but Lexaeus was willing to risk picking up the newspaper, and Nine didn't protest. The article was long but heavier on conjecture than actual detail; the gist of it was that an elementary school teacher named Damian Greenberg had never come home from work one day; he'd last been seen escorting a student to her bus and going back into the building, but where he'd gone from there, no one knew. The only communication from him since then had come in the form of a series of letters, mailed the day of his disappearance, to many different recipients - to his wife and children, to his parents, to the principal of the school where he worked and to the superintendent of schools, to the families of several former students, even to the editor of the newspaper. The letters differed slightly, but in all of them, the missing man confessed to being a child molester who'd victimized at least one student per year throughout his teaching career. Comparisons were being drawn between Greenberg and Kirk Witauer, a political hopeful who'd committed suicide after being publicly called out for a child molester during a rally. Interestingly enough, investigation had shown that Witauer's accuser, a man named Edmy Ghatori, was a former student of Greenberg's, and witnesses had reported seeing someone who matched the description hanging around the school as class let out that day...

"...Nine, what have you done?"

"Don't ask me that!" Nine burst out, covering his face with his hands. "I know! No, it's not a coincidence! I just...what the hell was I supposed to do?"

Well...that had been simultaneously less and much more informative than Lexaeus had expected. Two child molesters exposed, one missing, one dead, and Nine was connected to both of them, presumably from before he lost his heart...it didn't take a mind reader to guess exactly what that connection was, especially since Nine had been no older than fifteen when he joined the Organization. And Nine did possess a very firm sense of right and wrong. But he applied those concepts more strictly to himself than to anyone else - it was difficult to contemplate him doing anything he considered wrong, for any reason, unless his or someone else's life was in immediate danger. The idea of him committing murder, hot-blooded or cold-blooded, was more difficult to imagine than Eight with blond hair and no tattoos.

But two men had been exposed. One had died and the other had vanished. Nine knew them both, and had reason to hate both intensely. And in any city with any convenient body of water, he would find it all too easy to make a murder look exactly like a suicide, or make a man disappear forever.

"Nine..._did_ you murder these men?"

"Oh, for fuck's sake. Even Axel got suspicious about Witauer...but I swear I didn't kill him. I would have preferred to see him having to live with his new well-earned reputation. The chickenshit really did kill himself."

"What about this other man? The teacher?"

"For fuck's sake...why should I bother denying anything? Yes, I went to the school and confronted him. Yes, I forced him to write all those letters. He wrote them all, but I sent them."

"...You murdered him."

"No - no - I don't know!"

"He is dead, though? You do know that?"

"Yes..."

"How did he die?"

"...Lexaeus...you know the rumor that...if you talk to a person long enough, know all the right words to say and buttons to push...just with words alone, you can break their spirit so completely that...that they spontaneously turn into a Heartless?"

"Yes..."

"...I did it. I did it. Gods help me, Lexaeus, I actually did it..."

* * *

><p>AN: This is probably the most evil you will ever see Demyx behaving. He has the capacity to be more evil than this, but if he ever actually was, he would probably commit suicide in remorse later, and he knows it. I'm still not sure whether turning Mr. Greenberg into a Heartless was accidental or not. I feel sorry for Demyx either way - first he decided he was absolutely not going to do anything that would cause him to have trouble looking at himself in the mirror, and then he went and did <em>that<em>. He and his therapist (and his multiple unofficial therapists, including Lexaeus) are going to have some long conversations about this.

Prompt 1: A character kills someone. During the story, a character finds out a dark secret. The story ends in a kitchen. During the story, a famous person goes missing.

Prompt 2: The story starts in a school. The story must have a water-spirit involved in the middle. During the story, a character makes a life-changing decision.


	9. The Price of Broken Promises

This was going to be one of the best homemade meals Demyx had ever had. It seemed almost appropriate that it was going to be his last.

He'd already made sure that both his doors were firmly locked - the last thing he wanted was for anyone to walk in and try to stop him, or worse yet, try to share, including his cat, who'd been safely evacuated to Axel's room. Connie was such a sweet little cat, and she'd been an invaluable companion during a very rough time indeed; it would be a poor sort of reward to put her in a position where she could get at his leftovers. She'd probably try, if she could; not only was she an incorrigible food thief, he'd made himself an excellent meal that would be difficult for anyone to resist sampling. Poached monkfish for an appetizer, with his grandmother's wonderfully creamy spinach and chickpea curry (maybe not the fanciest dish ever invented, but it was nonetheless his choice for his last meal, and not in the sense of pure conjecture) as the entree, and for dessert, a very special, single-serving batch of gulab jamun, with two secret ingredients - rosewater and potassium cyanide. The meal had taken quite a bit of effort to produce, but really, if you were going to commit suicide, why not make it as pleasant as possible?

_Because you deserve to suffer..._

Well, a major part of the reason he was doing this was because he never wanted to suffer again. Gods knew he'd suffered enough already, without ever getting a chance to do much normal living. If life was supposed to be equal parts joy and misery...well, he'd been cheated, no two ways about it. Maybe it was dysthymia, maybe it was real major depression - but if he had to live with illnesses that sapped his ability to be happy at all, what was the point? And that horrid little voice in his head, the one that reminded him of all he'd ever done wrong in his life and everything he'd failed to do right and how badly he needed to suffer for his sins...it would be such a relief to finally silence that little voice forever. And in the meantime, no matter what ugly names it called him and what pain it wanted him to inflict on himself, the poached monkfish was excellent.

Axel and Roxas were going to be disappointed, though. He'd already written them a note, explaining his reasoning and reassuring them that they'd be better off without him - and they would be, which they'd surely realize after living without him for a while. They'd just about turned "worrying about Demyx" into an Olympic event; it would be a huge load off their shoulders not to have to do so anymore. And even though it would no doubt hurt at first, they'd be able to lean on each other for support until they realized that things really were better this way. They'd be just fine. And damn, he'd never made this curry so well in his life. It seemed fitting that his last time making it would turn out to be his best. He almost wished he could share it with someone - but no, that was just not a good idea. Then they'd want to share the gulab jamun too.

His therapist was also going to be disappointed, but he didn't care half so much about her. Same with Vexen, on both counts. They didn't seem to realize that Demyx could lie to them about having suicidal thoughts, intentions, and plans just as easily and convincingly as he could lie to anyone else. His innocent face and general attitude of complete sincerity in all he said and did really made him a wonderful liar when he needed to be. And didn't it just stand to reason that one of his precious few useful skills would be lying like a rug and being believed by people who should know better. But fortunately, cooking was another one, and these gulab jamun were really excellent, wonderfully sweet with hints of rose and almond. That last would be the cyanide, of course, but he didn't mind. After all, he'd put it there.

Once they were gone, it was just a waiting game.

First, he turned some music on, and not one of his own recordings. Listening to one of those would just...remind him of all the wrong things right now. He'd pre-selected Beethoven's Ninth for the occasion, and would be content to just lie on his bed and listen while he waited. Oh, it would be so nice to hear properly in his next life, and not have to live with all these ugly memories he had...being teased on the playground, raped in a closet, abandoned in a stadium, disemboweled on a table, beaten on the floor, trapped in the silence...he'd do anything to forget every last memory he had of Mr. Greenberg, from the first day of class when he so foolishly thought that maybe he finally had a teacher that actually liked him, to...to that last confrontation, when he'd finally been the one in control for the first time, and without even meaning to, ended up watching a man shrivel up and turn into a Heartless just from the cruel words he'd said...he'd meant to be cruel, and wouldn't have cared if his cruelty had led to the other man's suicide, but to have to watch that, and know it was his doing...he'd die to forget he'd ever seen that...well, he was starting to feel weak and dizzy, and breathing wasn't so easy as it used to be. It seemed he was about to. Blessed Gods, he could still hear the words Lexaeus had said, after he'd seen the news article, as clear as if he was right there saying them right now...

_"Nine, what have you done?"_

_...Oh, blessed Gods, what _have _I done?_

He'd just taken a fatal dose of cyanide, was what. Blessed Gods, it was getting harder and harder to breathe...he tried to stand up, but he was so weak and dizzy he went straight to his knees...his stomach was starting to cramp with nausea, but it was too late, far too late, to reconsider; now, whether he wanted to or not, he was going to die...and his friends would read the note he'd left and think he'd been content to die like this, when really, all he wanted to do right now was live...

No. As long as he was still alive and still conscious, there had to be something he could do to save himself. Crawling on his hands and knees to his desk, he used it as a support to pull himself back to his feet and then to lean on, as he grabbed the bottle the cyanide had come in. He didn't want to die while Vexen was busy guessing at exactly what was wrong with him. Then he just had to open a portal...stumble through it to the hospital wing...he was so tired now, he just wanted to sleep, except if he went to sleep now he'd never wake up...first he had to punch the big red button on the desk, despite the fact that the world was swimming in front of his eyes now and he could barely see it...he threw up on the desk, unable to even try to hold it down, and knew it wouldn't save him...and then his knees buckled and collapsed from under him, and all he could do was lie there and fight to stay conscious, and pray that Vexen made it in time and was able to do something, anything, to save him...there was someone leaning over him now, but his vision was so dim he had no idea if it was Vexen, Axel, or his grandmother...unable to speak now, he tried to hold up the bottle, hoping that whoever it was would see it and know what was happening...were they trying to talk to him? He could hear a voice, or thought he could, and it sounded like Vexen's...

"Nine, what have you done?"

* * *

><p>"He promised he'd never try again. He <em>promised<em>."

"Axel -"

"How could he? How could he do something like that? He _promised!_"

"Axel, please, listen to me -"

"And then that note - telling us that we'd be better off without him - how could he still think that? I thought he was getting treatment - I thought he was supposed to be getting better - he _promised!_"

"Axel!" That last was accompanied by a sharp slap to the face, which distracted Axel long enough for him to realize Roxas was actually trying to tell him something important, not just talk in his direction. "Are you listening to me now? He's _not dead_, you idiot. He managed to get help in time."

"...What?" That information refused to compute at first, and Axel was left staring blankly at Roxas as if he'd never seen him before. But...Demyx was dead, he knew it; he'd been suddenly yanked off his mission and sent home to find that Demyx had committed suicide by (so far as anyone could tell) making himself a nice meal heavily laced with cyanide. So...what was this about him _not_ being dead? "What do you mean he's not dead?" he asked, hoping that repeating it might make it a little more true.

"I mean he's not dead; what did you think I mean?" Before continuing to explain beyond "he's not dead", Roxas grabbed the front of Axel's robe and pulled him into a hug tight enough to hurt. Axel didn't care about a little pain, as long as Demyx _wasn't dead_. "I told you. He managed to drag himself to the hospital wing and get help. In time. And even had sense enough to bring the bottle along so Vexen knew what was going on. Cyanide poisoning is actually not that difficult to treat. Vexen got him stabilized and recovering in a lot less time than it took Xigbar to find Xanrivash and drag her back. He'll be okay."

"Oh...all right...that's good..." Once that mind-blowing understatement was out of the way, all Axel could do was sit down on the bed and cry, from a combination of shock and relief and worry and a sense of betrayal. After all, Demyx had promised, after his last failed suicide attempt, that he would never try to take his own life again. Thank God he'd failed this time too, even more so that it sounded like he'd come to his senses in time to sabotage himself instead of underdosing or being caught in the act or failing by some other accident, but still - he'd _promised_. How could he do that? How _could_ he? Before he could stop himself, Axel jumped back to his feet and punched the wall, hard enough to injure his hand. But how much did the pain really matter? How could Demyx _do_ that? "He promised!" he yelled aloud, punching the wall again and drawing blood this time, which made Roxas grab his hand and physically restrain it. "He promised he'd never do that again!"

"Axel - _Axel!_ Calm down! You're not doing Demyx or anyone any favors by breaking your hand!" Somehow, despite his size disadvantage, Roxas managed to drag Axel back down into a sitting position. "Just...please, for Kingdom Hearts's sake, calm down..."

"Calm down? Roxas, he _promised_..."

"I know." Those simple words opened the floodgates all over again, and Axel just sat there and cried like a baby, while Roxas bandaged his battered hand. "But I also know he's mentally ill. And, you know...I've seen enough ads on TV in other worlds to know that 'antidepressants can increase suicide risk in children, teens, and young adults'. He probably couldn't really help it."

"That's...not really a comforting thought, got it memorized?"

"I know. But...it does kind of explain what got him thinking that way. It's not really his fault."

Axel sighed, and gave Roxas a hug, not caring how that hindered the younger boy's efforts to fix his hand. "I don't know, Rox," was all he could say. "I just don't know." Which was worse, thinking that Demyx had consciously and deliberately attempted to take his own life, or thinking that his behavior was due to a mental illness he hadn't asked for and a treatment whose side effects could include the very thing it was supposed to prevent? That Demyx had been in complete control of himself, or that he hadn't? After all, Demyx knew he was sick, and presumably had been informed of every sort of side effect that antidepressants could come up with, and hadn't decided that they were causing his suicidal thoughts instead of his own free will...maybe it was some combination of factors. Maybe he'd consciously considered suicide at first, and the underlying mental illness had encouraged him on to the deed; maybe the illness had caused the first suicidal impulses, and his conscious mind decided that it wasn't a bad idea for whatever reason. But...he must have been planning this for some time, if he'd had a chance to buy the cyanide and plan a nice final meal for himself and make sure the timing was right so that no one would catch him...how could no one have seen this? How could no one have ever caught on? Especially Axel? "...Rox...are we allowed to go see him yet?" he asked, his voice cracking slightly.

"Yeah," Roxas said, sounding subdued as he finished bandaging Axel's hand. "One at a time, I think is what Vexen said."

"All right..." How could Demyx have done that? What could he say to him? "Rox...you go first. I just...don't feel ready to see him right now."

"I understand. Is there anything you want me to tell him?"

"...Tell him I'm sorry."

* * *

><p>Roxas really, really wished that Vexen would allow Demyx more than one visitor at a time, or that Axel would have been willing to go first. Axel had been friends with Demyx for years longer than Roxas could even remember, and had ever so much more insight into how his mind worked...well, at least as much as anyone could have. Funny, before Demyx was officially diagnosed with anything, they'd all just thought of him as kind of moody and strange and considered that perfectly normal for a suffering-artist type...and now...well, before today, things had still been pretty normal. After today...well, on the one hand, knowing the diagnosis made it easier to understand why he'd do something like that, out of the blue. He was mentally ill, after all; you couldn't expect him to think the same way or make the same decisions as someone who was mentally well.<p>

All the same...he'd _promised_.

Demyx was still on oxygen when Roxas reached his room, and he definitely looked like he'd been wrung out hard, but other than that, he mostly looked...well, not _too_ bad. More like he'd been sick for a while than like he'd just tried to kill himself. He even managed to smile a little, albeit rather wanly. "Hey, Roxas," he said, his voice low and soft. "Come to offer the sad sack a little company?"

Roxas knew that it had to be Demyx's mental health issues making him put himself down like he always did, and he so wished they would go away. "I don't know what sad sack you're talking about; I came in here to keep my big brother company," he said, sitting in the chair next to Demyx's bed. "How are you feeling, after brush with death number...whatever?"

"In all honesty...luckier to be alive now than ever before," Demyx sighed, his eyes sagging closed. "You have no idea how thrilled I was just to wake up after passing out earlier, given that waking up wasn't in the original plans..."

"Why did you do it?"

"It just...seemed like the right thing to do. I wouldn't have to be so miserable anymore, everyone else would be rid of that much dead weight, you and Axel would never have to worry about me anymore..." Before Roxas could chastise him for talking like that again, Demyx started to cry, and Roxas ended up hugging him instead. "I'm sorry, Rox," Demyx choked. "I...I knew it would hurt at first, but...I figured that once you had a chance to get used to it, you'd realize you were better off..." Demyx sounded exactly like he always did, so much so that some empty hole in Roxas's chest started to ache - was the entire reason he was the way he was because of his mental health problems? It was so easy to think of it as just how Demyx was, but if the way he was led him to do things like this to himself...there were so many things he wanted to ask, but for now, it seemed better to just let Demyx talk. "It...it's kinda funny. I put all that effort into it, made myself a nice meal and everything...and then it all went to waste. Even what wasn't poisoned. My stomach definitely feels emptier than it should, so I assume Vexen must have done something to get rid of it all while I was out. Or I just puked it all out and don't remember."

Well, that did make sense, to Roxas's mind - he wasn't sure what exactly cyanide did to the system, but getting the remaining poison out of his stomach before it took full effect was probably a good idea - but the more details he learned and the more he thought about it, the worse he was starting to feel. "...What made you...reconsider?" he asked hesitantly, hoping for something a little more uplifting.

Demyx gave him a look, as if uncertain whether he should answer at all or not. "I...I was lying on the bed, just...waiting for it to take effect," he started, his voice so soft as to be barely audible; he looked deeply ashamed of himself. "I was thinking about what a fuckup I was and how much my life sucked and all the things I'd done wrong...and all of a sudden, I could hear Lexaeus saying 'Nine, what have you done?' And...it was a wake-up call. I just...realized what a gargantuan mistake I'd made and that I had to get help that instant if I didn't want to die." His voice started to quaver a little. "If I'd come to my senses a minute later, I think it would have been too late...I'm so sorry, Rox. I'm so sorry..."

Roxas couldn't help but give him another hug, and let him cry on his shoulder for a while. He was too busy trying not to cry himself to care about a wet spot on his shirt. "You're gonna be okay, right?" he asked, trying and failing to keep his voice steady. "No - no permanent damage?"

"Besides my reputation and mental well-being, no." Demyx sighed heavily and pried himself away from Roxas's shoulder, staring at the wet spot he'd left as if it was some kind of nasty stain. "Then again, I already had a reputation for being a self-destructive whackjob, so I guess no _further_ harm done there." He sighed, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand. "You're not...mad, are you? That I...you know, broke that promise?"

"Mad? Are you...kidding?" Roxas had been that close to saying "are you nuts", but realized just in time how tactless that would be. After all, or so Roxas assumed, the entire reason - or at least most of the reason - behind this attempt was the fact that Demyx _was_ mentally ill. "Sad and hurt, maybe, but not mad. Axel somehow got it into his head that you were dead at first, and he just about went ballistic."

"...Tell him I'm sorry..."

"That's what he wanted me to tell you."

"What? But...why?" Demyx looked genuinely confused by that, and about to cry again. "I mean...it wasn't his fault..."

"It wasn't your fault either," Roxas said firmly, trying to stop Demyx from crying, because he wasn't sure how long he could stop himself crying if Demyx started again. "You're just...not well, you know? That's why...it's not your fault, it's this...dysthymia..."

Demyx just gave him a very odd look that made Roxas wonder what he'd said wrong, and eventually let out a laugh, but it didn't sound the least bit amused. "Partly right, Roxas. Partly right. Part of my reasoning that didn't get mentioned in the note was that if I had to be saddled with an illness that made it so difficult to be happy, what was the point...I'm so sorry, Rox. I'm so sorry. I...I know I promised not to try again, but...it seemed like the only thing I could do...I really thought it was better to break it. I thought it was the right thing to do..." At this point, Roxas finally gave up the fight and let himself cry, which only seemed to make Demyx feel worse. "I'm so sorry, Rox...it _is_ all my fault."

"Don't say that!"

"For fuck's sake, Rox, you think not saying it is going to make it any less true?" Demyx's eyes flashed with anger briefly, and he actually grabbed Roxas by the shoulders and gave him a shake, before sagging back onto the bed and crying harder than ever. "You can't put all the blame on the illness. I mean...I didn't just make that promise to you two. I made it to myself. I failed myself. Dysthymia or no dysthymia, I failed myself..."

"Demyx..."

"What?"

"We still love you, just so you know." Demyx sighed, looking as though he'd completely run out of tears, but he sat up enough to give Roxas another hug, so Roxas figured he had to have said something right. "Remember, you saved yourself too. And, you know...what's most important to us is...is not the promise. It's that you're still alive."

It was a long time before Demyx said anything, after that. "...Thank you, Rox," he finally whispered. "Thank you. I am still alive...and now...I think I understand why."

* * *

><p>AN: ...I apologize. I just hadn't hurt Demyx seriously in several chapters. It seemed about time. The specific plot of this one can be blamed on <em>The Fire Rose<em> by Mercedes Lackey, wherein the protagonist decides against committing suicide in her dreary, boring boarding house in favor of going to San Francisco, buying herself a really beautiful dress, going to the opera, and committing suicide in a luxury box during a performance, because that seemed like a much nicer way to go. (She didn't pull it off either.) Demyx likes to cook, so instead of simply taking a hefty dose of cyanide and bowing out, he packaged it into a nice meal. As an interesting side note, glucose seems to slow the effect of cyanide, so putting it all in the dessert probably saved his life.

Prompt: A character becomes intoxicated. A character becomes angry during the story. The story must involve a chair in it.

(I used "intoxicated" in the broad sense of being under the effects of a toxic substance, instead of the narrow sense wherein that toxin must be alcohol.)


	10. Need to Know

"Demyx?"

"Yeah?"

"...Are you all right?"

"...I'm not about to feed myself more cyanide, if that's what you mean."

"Well, that was a big part of it, yeah. So that is good to know."

"That's good. It's nice to know that I can brighten up your day in an instant just by not being actively suicidal."

"...What the hell?"

"Or, at least, by _saying_ I'm not actively suicidal."

"...Demyx...is there something you're not telling me?"

"Axel...if I was genuinely suicidal, do you think I would tell you?"

"What do you -"

"_Did _I tell you?"

"...No."

"Exactly. Axel, so you know, I can lie just like any other human being ever born. Better, actually, because for some reason people seem to have the impression that I'm unfailingly honest. They believe anything I tell them, because I have such an honest face or something, even when it's complete bullshit."

"..."

"And don't flatter yourself that you're an exception or that you know me too well to ever be fooled. I can lie to you just as easily as anyone else."

"Demyx...why are you telling me this?"

"Don't you get it, Ax? I _lied_. I lied to you, I lied to Roxas, I lied to Vexen, I lied to my therapist, I lied to pretty much everyone who asked me how I was and if I was doing all right for a good month straight. And no one suspected a damn thing until I actually tried to kill myself."

"...I did get that part. Let me repeat the question - why are you telling me this?"

"...Because I need you to know. I need you to know that I can lie just like anyone else, even to you, and not just little white lies either. I need you to know that I can smile and say I'm fine and change the subject when I'm actually intending to kill myself later that night. I need you to know, because if you don't know that I can lie, if you just accept that everything I say is true...then the next time I start lying to you, you won't go looking for the truth until it's already too late."

"Demyx..."

"What."

"Thank you."

"...What? For what?"

"For telling me. It's no small thing to call yourself out for a liar. Granted, this is stuff that...probably should have been really obvious to me, but...it is good to know that you'd rather tell me yourself ahead of time that you're going to lie like a rug if you start feeling suicidal again and that I should be watching out for it, instead of just...keeping it all to yourself and letting us all just trust you blindly and leave you alone because you said you were okay."

"...I'm afraid, Axel. Gods help me, that's the only reason I'm doing this. I came way too close this last time, and I'm afraid that if I ever gave it another shot...I'd finally succeed."

"I'm afraid of that myself. I completely approve of any effort you might take to prevent it."

"I know, Ax. I'm sorry."

"Demyx, there's nothing to be sorry for, got it memorized? All you're doing is trying to save yourself."

* * *

><p>AN: No specific prompt for this one. Just a need to clear the air between these two after the last chapter. I've published a few of these tag-free dialogues on deviantART; it's an interesting way to write a short story, as long as you keep it between two characters and offer some hint as to who those characters are.<p> 


	11. For One Answered Prayer

_...Ah, blessed Gods...where am I?..._

_Well...wherever it is...it's wet...and pretty cold...rocky...and my everything hurts. All right, now how did I -_

_Blessed Gods. Axel. Where's Axel?_

Demyx jerked upright, ignoring the pain in basically every muscle in his body, as the entire chain of events that led up to him being where he was now suddenly came back to him. That Darkside...in the old building on the cliff...it had broken through the back wall of the building, which had forced them to make a hasty escape before the whole thing came down around them...and almost before Demyx could get his bearings back and resume the fight, it had knocked Axel straight off the cliff...and to Demyx, killing the Darkside wasn't half as important as trying to save his friend...but had he? Blessed Gods, if he hadn't...if he'd turned his back on a Darkside and jumped off a cliff into a rough sea with a nasty current and done a whole host of other life-endangeringly stupid things and hadn't managed to save Axel in the process...reluctantly, he looked around, and saw Axel sprawled on the beach right next to him. Sighing with relief, he picked himself up and carefully dragged Axel a little further away from the water. Better to let him dry out a little, before they went home; staying wet too long wasn't good for him...

..._I'm thirsty._

That one mundane-seeming realization made Demyx feel sick to his stomach. He was _never_ thirsty, ever, unless his powers were so completely drained he couldn't even summon his sitar or create a portal. He didn't remember most of what had happened after diving into the water, but he could just imagine, trying to keep his and Axel's heads above water and keep the two of them together and get them safely to some shore that _didn't_ have a Darkside waiting for them and not get beaten to death against the rocks in the process, plus the fight beforehand and whatever effort it had taken to find Axel at all...it shouldn't have taken that much power, but he just didn't remember so much of it - he might have been out there fighting for hours. Meaning that a portal home would have to wait until Axel came around, presuming he was any more capable of making one than Demyx was. But that much water couldn't be good for him at all, and Demyx was in no shape to help him with it...and if they couldn't go home, they couldn't get help... His hands trembling slightly, with exhaustion and fear, he reached over and gently stroked Axel's hair, praying that he _could_ wake up. If he never did...if he had to sit here on this beach all alone for five days or however long it took, until his powers returned enough that he could finally go home and tell Roxas...Axel's skin was so pale, and he felt so cold...

And then Axel let out a faint groan, and his eyes opened just a little, and he looked at Demyx and managed a weak smile. "Hey," he croaked feebly, one hand moving slightly, as if he was trying to reach for Demyx's hand but just didn't have the strength. "I guess...you musta done...somethin' awesome back there."

"Well, I don't remember a hell of a lot about it, but hey, we are both alive," Demyx said, unable to keep himself from smiling now, he was so grateful to see that Axel was still alive and okay. "Guess I can't have done too bad."

Axel gave him another weak smile and closed his eyes, and Demyx's relief vanished in an instant, to be replaced by a cold fear. "At least...when y'get home...y'can tell 'em you tried..."

"What do you mean, when _I_ get home?" Demyx demanded, though he already knew exactly what Axel had to mean. He took the redhead's questing hand and held it tightly, as if that would somehow keep him there in spite of everything. "When I go home, you're going with me, understand?"

"I wish, Dem." Axel's eyes were open again, and he was looking at Demyx with an expression he couldn't interpret, but that frightened him deeply. "Can't feel my legs," he added, as if that would make it somehow better.

"Stop that! I'm not gonna let you die, got it memorized?" That phrase got a feeble laugh out of Axel, but Demyx only felt like a terrible liar for saying the rest of the sentence. He'd tried, he'd tried, but he'd failed; he'd come so close and dragged him all the way to safety but he'd still failed, because Axel had been so badly injured by the initial fall that he could never have survived anyway... "I mean...after I dove in after you and went through all that effort to keep you above water and breathing and get you back safely to shore...it wouldn't be very damn nice of you to just die here instead."

"M' sorry, Dem." Axel's hand twitched slightly in Demyx's, as if he was trying to give it a squeeze but was just too weak. "I...I wish..." He choked slightly, and Demyx was terrified that he was going to die that instant without telling him what he wished, but he managed to gather his strength and continue. "Wish it didn't...have to end like...like this...but...at least...you're okay..."

"I won't be if you die, so you know."

"Dem...you're tough...tougher than that. You'll...be okay. I...I'm just...glad I'm...not alone..."

"Axel!..." Fighting back tears, Demyx carefully cradled Axel in his arms, cursing fate and the world and that Darkside and his own incompetence. Dammit, he should have been able to save Axel, he knew he should have, and yet he hadn't...and now Axel was dying, and it was all his fault, and there was nothing he could do to save him anymore...he couldn't even take him home...and he knew, in spite of what Axel said, that he would never be okay again, once Axel was gone... "I'm so sorry, Ax. This is all my fault..."

Axel shook his head weakly, trying to smile a little, but it just wasn't happening. "No...not your fault...jeez...stop blamin' yourself...all the damn time...I told you...y'did good. I could have drowned alone...scared as hell...but instead...I'm here. With you. That...that's worth a lot."

"Ax..."

"Thank you..."

_I can't cry,_ Demyx reminded himself sternly, biting his tongue. _I can't cry. I can't cry. I am damn well not going to cry_. "Well...you know damn well I'm gonna miss you, you bastard," he croaked, struggling to obey his own internal commands. "And then I'm gonna have to try to explain this to Roxas..."

"C-come on, Dem...he's not - not gonna think...any less of you. You guys just...take care of...of each other..." Axel's eyes sagged closed again, and his head rolled to one side; Demyx held his breath and tightened his grip, certain that Axel was going to stop breathing and fade away any second. It didn't happen, thank every God individually, and eventually Axel opened his eyes again. "Dem, I...I hate to...ask you this, but...c-could you...do me a...f-favor?"

Demyx was that close to saying _yes, whatever you want, I'll do it_, until he realized that Axel woud never have said "I hate to ask you this" unless it was going to be something really difficult or unpleasant. He'd probably do it anyway, but first he had to ask - "What is it?"

"I...I don't...wanna drag this out...forever. It hurts, it sucks...I-I just want it...over with. Please...just...just finish me."

Demyx froze up when he heard that, feeling like he was about to pass out. Ah, Gods, he should have known that it would be something like this...now what could he do? He could either refuse, and let Axel suffer and die slowly...or agree, and kill his own best friend. What could he do...? "I-I'm sorry, Ax," he said, hardly paying attention to his own words. "I lost my knife, and I'm completely dead dry...I just - I can't." Axel sighed, looking disappointed, and closed his eyes again, while Demyx felt like a complete and utter heel for misleading him - granted, his powers were completely drained, but he had no idea whether he still had his knife or not, and rather suspected he did. "I'm so sorry..." he choked, now wondering why he was shirking his duty to his friend, if duty it was. Axel's back was broken, and the Gods alone knew what other injuries he had that were killing him slowly and painfully, and there was no way to get him home for real medical treatment, and Demyx didn't have the guts to finish him off so he wouldn't have to suffer...and from the look on Axel's face, he probably knew that the problem was more Demyx's own cowardice than anything, but he wasn't saying a word against him...

"You know what, Ax?" he said suddenly, surprising even himself. "I can't draw power from seawater when I'm this drained - it'd just make me sick - but I'm gonna see if I can find a decent source of fresh water anywhere near here."

"What?" Axel opened his eyes again, and looked up at Demyx with pure fear. "Please...don't - don't leave me here...not alone..."

"I'm not gonna leave you here," Demyx said, carefully setting Axel down and standing up. He nearly fainted when he saw blood on his hand, until he realized it was his own blood from a deep cut he hadn't noticed earlier. "I'm taking you with me."

"...Are you nuts?"

"You know I am, Axel," Demyx said, not even bothering to do anything with the cut on his hand; time was too short. Instead, he carefully picked Axel up off the ground, struggling a little under his weight, and somehow found a position to half-carry, half-drag him along in, that he didn't think would be too uncomfortable for Axel. "How's that?"

"...You're right, Dem...I do know you're nuts."

"Awesome." Closing his eyes, Demyx let his consciousness expand outward for a moment, until he found what he was looking for - a natural spring, of clean fresh water, that wasn't too far away, or at least wouldn't have been under normal circumstances. When he was half-dead himself, and trying to drag Axel along when Axel was that close to entirely dead...

Well, he really didn't have too much choice in the matter, except to give up and let Axel die slowly where they were. Gritting his teeth and adjusting his grip slightly, he headed in the direction of the spring, praying to any God that might listen that he wouldn't get there alone.

* * *

><p>"...You know somethin', Dem?"<p>

"No," Demyx said, gritting his teeth and trying to save his breath for walking. Dear Gods, he'd never been so thirsty and so powerless to do anything about it...he knew they were almost at the spring, but it felt like he'd been trudging along, towing Axel behind him, for hours already. In fact, he probably had. He was parched, he was exhausted, he had a nice layer of vomit sun-drying on the back of his neck, he was hurting all over, he was starting to feel so weak...he actually had no idea how badly he was injured himself, he'd been so busy worrying about Axel. He might be dying as well, without even knowing it...and since Axel was bound to die first, that meant he was almost certain to die alone here...he'd never have to tell Roxas that Axel was dead, sure, but then someone else would have to tell Roxas that both of them were dead...

"You know, I...I always kinda...wished you were gay..."

"...Okay...why?" At this point, Demyx wasn't going to begrudge Axel any deathbed confession he thought appropriate, but...that one was just plain weird.

"'Cause...you know...you're a...good-lookin' guy...real sweet...just a...real great guy. And...you know...we - we get along...so well...sometimes I...I thought that...if - if only...you weren't straight...we mighta had somethin'...somethin' more. But...jus'...d-didn't work out...that way..."

Now what the hell was Demyx supposed to say to _that_? That was just really fucking weird, but he just couldn't laugh or yell at Axel, because that would be _rude_, and Axel was _dying_, and he just _couldn't _be rude to him right now...but it was still so _weird_, but he just felt so bad that Axel had apparently been crushing on him for years and he would never, ever have been able to return his feelings even if they each lived for another hundred years...which they wouldn't, because Axel was _dying_... "Well, really, the only part of that you had right is that I'm straight," Demyx said, playing it by ear as best he could. "But...dammit, Axel, I'm sorry."

"For - for what?...Being...straight?"

"I...I guess?"

"Don't, Dem...don't ever be. Don't be sorry...gay, straight, bi...don't - don't ever be...sorry. Just...be you, got it...m-m...memor...ized..."

"Axel?"

"S-sorry for...pukin' on you...earlier..."

"It's all right, Ax. Besides, you already apologized for that. How are you holding out?"

"Dem...I - I wanna...just...s-sit down...and...and rest...for...just - just a...second...please..."

This was probably it. Feeling numb with grief, Demyx carefully set Axel down with his back against a convenient rock, since he probably couldn't sit up by himself if he wanted to. And they were so damn close to the spring now, and not only had he failed to save Axel's life, he couldn't even drag him that far... "Are you comfortable?" he asked, his voice low and soft. At this point, there was nothing else he could do but try to make him comfortable, and just...wait until it was over.

"Just a...li'l thirsty."

"All right...the spring's not too far now, so I'll see if I can bring you a drink from there, okay?"

"Dem..."

"Yeah?"

"Don't...don't ever...c-call your...self a...a coward...again." Axel was having to stop for breath after every other word now, and for several between sentences. "You're th-the...b-bravest...p-person I...ever knew...g-got it...m...m-m...mem...or...ized..."

Demyx had promised himself that he wouldn't cry while Axel was still breathing, but hearing him struggling to say that phrase almost made him break down. "Just...hold on a bit longer, please," he choked, refusing to break his promise and cry. "I'm gonna get you some water, okay?"

"Th...thank...you..."

Really, leaving Axel right now was absolutely the last thing Demyx wanted to do, but Axel was thirsty, and Demyx didn't have enough power to give himself a drink if he wanted one, let alone give Axel one. He couldn't even run the rest of the way to the spring right now, though, and how could he ever bring any water back if his powers weren't working? Even though he was already halfway to the spring, he wanted to turn back...he had to turn back...Axel might die alone while he was going to get the water...and yet, for whatever reason, he kept going, dragging himself along to where he sensed the spring was, until he stumbled over a tree root and landed facedown in it. All he could think, as he lay there inhaling water, was _Funny, I didn't know I was _that _close...I wonder why I didn't see it._

The next thing he noticed was how much _better_ he felt all of a sudden. Not just better in the sense of getting some of his powers back, or not being thirsty anymore, but just plain all-around _better_. Suddenly unable to resist the urge, he pulled his boots and robe off, with more energy than he'd had since waking up on the beach, and jumped into the spring; it wasn't large - a pool of water roughly ten feet across and seven feet deep, with groundwater welling up from a crack between two rocks near the bottom - but it was just large enough to submerge himself in, and astoundingly clean and pure even after he'd immersed his dirty, sweaty self in it; it was even nicer to breathe than air. He felt like he could simply absorb the entire thing, including the groundwater that fed it, but that would just be greedy, he had enough power now to...and he almost passed out underwater, realizing that Axel might have died thirsty while he was goofing off in the water. Scrambling back to dry land and drying himself off instantly, he went to grab his boots and leave his robe behind because he didn't have time for it.

And then he realized that the cut on his hand had disappeared. There was just a hole in his glove, and unbroken skin beneath.

_...Whatever God is responsible for this...thank You...now please don't let it be too late..._

Ignoring his boots as well, he scooped up a ball of water from the spring and ran back to where he'd left Axel, ignoring how his socks and feet were being abused in the process. He had to get this water back to Axel before it was too late...but as he returned to the rock where he'd left him, he could see that Axel's eyes were closed, and he was achingly still. As he came closer, he could see dark flakes of shadow slowly peeling away from him and disappearing.

_Oh, no...oh, no, no, no, no...don't let me be too late...please...I could save him now, if only I'm not too late..._

Kneeling down next to Axel, he carefully pulled a smaller globe of water from what he'd taken from the spring and held it to Axel's lips, praying that somehow a miracle would happen and Axel wasn't quite all the way dead yet and there was still just enough time left...it had taken a miracle to find a healing spring at all, but it wouldn't be worth much if it had been found too late...it couldn't be too late; it just couldn't... "I brought water, Ax," he whispered, praying he would get a response, even though he knew he wouldn't. He'd been too late. Maybe only seconds too late, but too late was too late...

And then, Axel _moved_. It was so faint and so subtle that Demyx wasn't even sure what kind of motion it was - a flickering eyelid, a slight twitch of the lips, the tiniest twitch of one little muscle - but it was enough to make Demyx freeze and hold his breath, praying that maybe, just maybe, there was going to be another miracle...and Axel's mouth opened, just wide enough to accommodate the little ball of water Demyx was holding to his lips, and Demyx carefully pushed it in so he could swallow it...and he did swallow it, and lay completely still for a moment...and then he opened his eyes and looked at Demyx...(Thank you,) he mouthed, and Demyx nearly broke down and cried.

"I got more if you want it," he whispered, pulling another little ball off the larger one and hand-feeding it to Axel. Everything was going to be okay now. Everything was going to be okay. After all that struggle, and all that hopelessness, and knowing that Axel was dying the whole time, he was going to live now, and everything was going to be okay. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm actually surprised...by how bad I'm _not _feeling..." Axel smiled a little, shifting his legs a bit to be more comfortable, and suddenly froze. He stared down at his legs, looking stunned by what he'd just done, but Demyx couldn't help but grin. "Demyx...what the hell's going on?"

"I found a healing spring, Ax," Demyx said, choking back tears as he handed Axel the whole ball to take drinks of as he pleased. "You're gonna be okay now. Everything's gonna be okay."

"...Oh, my God. Miracles follow you around like disasters, and thank God they do or we'd all be dead..." Axel was laughing now, in between taking drinks from the water ball. "How do you do it? I mean it - how do you do it?"

"I pray a lot, and I don't fuss much about what God answers." Demyx straightened up and stepped back, just to make sure that yes, Axel had stopped fading completely. "It's worked so far. How are your legs?"

"I can actually feel them now, and I thought for sure I'd never do that again...Jesus, where the hell are your boots?"

"I took them off to go swimming and never bothered to put them back on...they're still at the spring. Think you can stand yet?"

"Let me finish this..." Axel gulped down the rest of the water ball as quickly as he could, then, with Demyx's help, carefully pulled himself to his feet; he was none too strong or stable, but he was able to stay upright by himself. "Oh, God...that feels good. You might have to help me walk, but damn, it's good just to be able to stand!"

"You need more," Demyx said decisively, helping Axel back towards the spring. "And I need my boots and stuff, so...let's go."

"Thank you," Axel said, as sincerely as anyone with a heart was capable of. "...You know, though...if I'd known I wasn't actually gonna die...I would never have told you that stuff about wishing you were gay."

"Oh, don't worry about that, for fuck's sake," Demyx laughed. "There's only one thing I care about, and that's that you're gonna be okay."

* * *

><p>AN: Originally, I was going to throw Demyx off the cliff alone and break <em>his <em>back, and make him crawl his way to whatever miracle healing he would have found, but the Demyx-muse blew a gasket when he heard that.

Prompt: The story takes place at noon exactly. A character becomes thirsty during the story. During the story, a character breaks something important to them. A character lies, and they aren't happy with it.


	12. Floored

_...Is...that rain?_

Demyx wasn't entirely sure where he was or what was going on, but he was aware that there was water falling on him from above. Water from above usually meant rain, but this was awfully warm rain...warm rain felt good, though. Nice and soothing and relaxing, like a warm blanket that happened to be made of water...funny, he was lying down. Was he in bed? No, it wasn't soft enough, and his surroundings were awfully white and shiny, not to mention wet. And the water from overhead couldn't be rain, because he was inside...where was he? Right...he was lying in the bathtub, with the shower running on him. Why? He didn't really remember; at least, he didn't remember making a conscious decision to turn the shower on and lie down in the bathtub. He kind of remembered turning on the shower, and then starting to feel bad - weak and dizzy and _oh dear Gods_ nauseous...

He made it most of the way out of the bathtub, but was still nowhere near the toilet when he threw up. Then, just to add insult to illness, his hand slipped when he tried to push himself to his feet, and he ended up landing face-first in it, and cracking his head against the floor in the bargain. His head had already been hurting pretty bad, and the added pain just made him even more nauseous, so much so that he couldn't even try to make it to the toilet this time; he threw up on the floor again just as the bathroom door opened. Too weak to resist now, he just let whoever came through the door do whatever they wanted to him, closing his eyes so he didn't have to watch the world blur and spin around him. At least, after dumping most of its contents already, his stomach was feeling a bit calmer now; he was just conscious and aware enough to realize how humiliating it would be to puke on his benefactor, especially when they were already washing more puke off his face (or at least that was what it felt like).

Funny, now that he was out from under the stream of warm water, he was starting to feel so cold...even when his helper wrapped a towel around him and started to dry him off, he was cold enough to shiver. Ignoring the towel, he tried to crawl back into the bathtub, because he'd been so much warmer in there, but his helper wasn't going to let him. Fortunately, whoever it was, they were very warm, and willing to let him snuggle as much as he wanted as long as they could still dry him off. It was probably Axel, he guessed based on all the evidence presented, but it actually didn't matter that much right then. He was feeling so weak and sick and dizzy that any comfort was welcome and all sources were equal. He also felt like he was going to throw up again, but this time, he managed to open his eyes, escape his helper, and make it all the way to the toilet before he did. Not making another mess on the floor was almost as much of a relief as finally having his stomach completely empty.

All right. Now. He had to think...oh, fuck it, thinking was too difficult. The most coherent idea he could fit in his head was to flush the toilet and get rid of the evidence...the entire bathroom was kind of spinning a little. Who told the bathroom it was allowed to spin? He wished they hadn't, because it was hard to look at...all right, now to try this standing-up thing. It took a few tries, but he eventually made it...oh, _man_, who told the bathroom it was allowed to spin even _more_. All of a sudden, he found himself on the floor again, balanced on one hand and one knee, trying to resist the siren call of gravity. Gravity was a tough opponent, but Demyx had a friend on his side, who could help him back to his feet and give him something to lean on and propel him back to his bedroom, and then even had him lie down so they could tuck him into bed. At some point, Demyx realized that he was completely naked, but he'd lost the ability to give a fuck at some point; now that he was lying down and covered in warm blankets and not ready to puke anymore, he was ready to just close his eyes and sleep for a long fucking time.

Unfortunately, his friend wasn't going to let him. Every time he tried to close his eyes and sleep, they slapped him or shook him until he had to open his eyes again. What would it take to make them stop so he could sleep...? Eventually, he forced his eyes to stay open, no matter how badly they wanted to close, and struggled to focus on whoever was trying so hard to keep him awake. As he'd guessed earlier, it was Axel...man, even his _bedroom_ was spinning around him. Who the hell told his _bedroom_ it was allowed to spin? It was _his_ bedroom, after all...wait, Axel was trying to talk to him. Demyx could see his lips moving, but he couldn't hear a damn thing, and trying to focus enough to read his lips was just too difficult right now. Where were his hearing aids? Fuck...he couldn't remember. He knew that he always took them off to shower, but where the fuck had he _put_ them?

Axel disappeared for a little while, and Demyx thought that it might finally be safe to sleep, except then he came back. It wasn't all bad, though, because he came back with a glass of water that he was nice enough to help Demyx sit up and drink, and a cold wet washcloth that felt awfully good on that growing bump on his forehead, and his hearing aids. And the hearing aids were especially nice, because they let him hear things, like Axel talking to him. But it was kind of funny, because even though he could hear what Axel was saying, he couldn't understand more than half of it...something about Vexen, that was all he could get out of it. Demyx didn't much care, as long as he'd be allowed to sleep soon.

Axel left again a second later, and Demyx tried to sleep again. But then something furry snuggled up to his neck, and something damp and rough stroked against his cheek, and he opened his eyes to find a cat licking his face. He wormed one hand out from under the blankets and tried to push it away, but it simply slid out from under his hand and kept on licking. Screw it, it wasn't worth the effort; besides, it was sitting on his shoulder now, and warm, and purring. He could put up with that. But just as he was getting ready to sleep again, the cat left, and someone with cold hands took away that nice washcloth on his forehead and put something in his mouth that he would rather not be there. Rather than put up with this kind of treatment, he took whatever it was out of his mouth and stared at it; it turned out to be a thermometer. Why would anyone be trying to force a thermometer in his mouth?

Before he could figure that out, it was removed from his hand and put back in his mouth. "Nine, would you please cooperate?" a high male voice demanded, and he had to blink several times before he could really recognize Vexen's face.

"I told you, he's delirious."

That sounded like Axel's voice. Was he back? When had he left? Had he left? "Whaddaya mean, delirious?" Demyx croaked, his tongue feeling like a block of wood for some reason. That was weird. And the thermometer fell out of his mouth again when he talked, which made Vexen frown at him and put it back. Clearly, annoying as it was, he would not be allowed to get rid of it. He took it back out a few moments later, just because it was so damn _annoying_.

"Nine!" Vexen sounded angry, for some reason Demyx couldn't work out. Then he left, which, in Demyx's opinion, was all to the good; he might have a chance to sleep now. Unfortunately, he came back almost as soon as he closed his eyes, and instead of sticking something in his mouth, this time, he pulled one of his hearing aids off and stuck something in his ear instead. Demyx was about to pull whatever it was out of his ear, since it was even more annoying than the thermometer and didn't do a thing to help him hear, except Vexen pulled it out himself. "One hundred four," he said with disgust, and Demyx wanted to ask one hundred four what and what it had to do with his ear and could he have his hearing aid back and everything, but he just couldn't find the words, and the world was starting to get kind of shimmery, and he was feeling really, really weird all of a sudden -

* * *

><p>Great. Where the fuck was he <em>now?<em> And why was _this_ room spinning too? Had someone been going around telling every room in the castle that it was allowed to spin? Demyx wished he knew who it was so he could go kick their ass...at some later point in time when he felt up to doling out an ass-kicking. Right then, all he felt was tired, confused, sick, and really fucking dizzy. Not to mention incapable of remembering how he'd gotten wherever he was. How _had_ he gotten here? The last thing he remembered was...was...well, he didn't remember very much or very clearly. He remembered trying to crawl out of the bathtub and over to the toilet to throw up, and not making it that far...he remembered wondering why his bedroom was spinning...he remembered Vexen putting a thermometer in his mouth that he didn't like...and then he was here.

_I must have been seriously messed the fuck up back there_, he thought to himself, and realized that just being able to think that probably meant he wasn't as messed-up now. All right, if he wasn't that messed-up anymore, he should be able to think more clearly...where the fuck was he, and what was going on? Well, he was sick; it didn't take too much thinking to come up with that conclusion. And his head really fucking _hurt_. And...well, if the room would just stop fucking _spinning_ for a second, it would probably turn out to be in the hospital wing. That was all the thinking he felt like doing right then.

"Demyx?"

Oh, yeah, he dimly remembered Axel being involved at some point previous, but that was Roxas's voice, not Axel's. Was Roxas here? It took a few seconds of determined attempts to focus his eyes well enough to see, and a bit of creativity to compensate for a really stiff neck - yes, Roxas was here, and sitting next to the bed. For some reason, all Demyx could think was _not this shit again_. "Whass goin' on?" he croaked with some difficulty, though he was only half-interested in the answer to that question and more interested in _how bad is it and how long am I going to be stuck here this time_.

"Um...I'm not really sure myself...from what I've heard...Vexen thinks you have meningitis."

"Fun," Demyx mumbled, closing his eyes so he wouldn't have to watch the room spin anymore. "List of crap I've never had before keeps gettin' shorter n' shorter." What was meningitis, anyway? He knew he should know, but all he could come up with when he thought about it was that it was supposed to be bad. How bad? People died from it, he was dimly aware, but people also died from the flu sometimes. And Demyx wasn't really feeling sicker than he ever had in his life...then again, this was _his life_. Which basically consisted of one disaster after another, held together by...string. He was sure he'd been about to think of a better word than "string", he just couldn't remember what the hell it was. "Feel like I've been hit by a truck," he added, raising a hand to touch the bump on his forehead, and finding an IV line in his elbow. _Why_ didn't that surprise him?

"Um...I feel like I should be saying something kind and encouraging right now - I _want_ to say something kind and encouraging now - but..."

"But what?"

"All I can think of to say is that you look like you've been hit by a truck."

Demyx started to laugh at that, until his head started pounding fiercely enough to make him feel sick to his stomach again. "Oh...that hurts so fuckin' much," he groaned, lying back stiffly. "Can't Vexen do something...?"

"...I dunno. I guess he must have done something, or Axel was exaggerating about how far out of it you were earlier, but...I dunno." Roxas rested a hand on Demyx's forehead; it felt oddly cool, in a comforting way. "Well, at least he's not keeping you in isolation, or freaking out like he expects you to die the instant he turns his back, so...I assume this isn't as bad as some things."

"Not TB again, y'mean. That'd suck balls."

"Yeah. We can breathe around you. We're just not supposed to kiss you or share drinks with you."

"...Don't kiss me."

"Don't worry. I wouldn't even if you weren't sick."

"Thanks," was the most intelligent reply Demyx could come up with. All he really wanted to do was close his eyes and forget the world for a while, especially the part that wouldn't stop spinning and the part that felt so miserable. Or, really, he just wanted to not feel so awful, and he wanted the world to not spin, and he wanted shit to be okay for a change. But since he couldn't make life suck less, he could sleep and forget about it for a while. "Can I sleep, Rox?" he asked plaintively, feeling like he had to ask and receive permission first. After all, it would be rude to just fall asleep with no warning. "I'm so fuckin' tired..."

"All right. Sleep," Roxas said, removing his hand from Demyx's forehead, but for some reason, he looked even more worried now. "...You'll be okay, right?"

...Would he be okay? Why would Roxas be asking him that? "Be fine once the world stops spinning," Demyx grunted, letting his eyes sag closed for a second before forcing them open again. "I don't think it's gonna stop on its own, so...I just wanna sleep."

"...That's not exactly what I meant, but okay," Roxas said, rubbing his forehead. Then, for whatever reason, he smiled. "Well, then again, it's you. You survive absolutely everything, don't you. It's like Death doesn't like you or want you around, so he's never gonna let you die."

Demyx blinked up at Roxas, trying to make some kind of sense of what he was saying. He was sure, on some level, that it had to make sense to Roxas, but it wasn't making sense to him. Why would he be talking about - oh. Right. Maybe. All that shit he was too tired to think about in-depth. It was almost kind of funny, that he'd be thinking that way. "Death doesn't want anything to do with me," he croaked, trying to carry on the joke. "He's sick of me ringin' his doorbell and runnin' away. I'll be fine."

Roxas actually smiled, at that, and Demyx couldn't help but smile back. "All right. Seeing as it's you, I believe it. All right, get some sleep, and I hope the world stops spinning around you soon. Try not to seize again, okay?"

"Try not to. Keep an eye on Axel. Make sure he doesn't let his sugar slide or anything."

"I will."

"Awesome." Satisfied that the world was going to keep functioning even though it wouldn't stop spinning, Demyx closed his eyes and let them stay closed this time. He didn't have anything to worry about.

* * *

><p>AN: It all started with Demyx passing out in the shower.<p>

Prompt: A character becomes sick during the story. A character will take a bath, but the action goes terribly wrong.


	13. Let Hell Break Loose

_The lines are gone; you cannot tell  
>Your waking life from fever dream -<br>Your mind is tearing at the seams.  
>The border fades 'twixt Earth and Hell.<em>

Demyx had never considered himself any sort of a lyricist. To be honest, he still didn't - he couldn't come up with a melody that fit both the flow and the attitude of those four disturbing lines better than plain speech did. What was the saying? Melody first, lyrics second? Maybe he could consider that a bit of poetry or something (albeit a disturbing bit), and write himself something that fit the mood of those lines without having to try to use them as lyrics. The fact that it would be weird and disturbing bothered him not at all (at least not while he still hadn't written anything); after all, music couldn't be happy and upbeat and uplifting all the time any more than life in general was. Plus, it would be a departure for him from what he usually wrote, and a challenge to write - if nothing else, he felt like he should write it just to prove to himself that he could write music like that.

Besides, it wasn't like he had anything better to do. Other than just lie around and wait for Vexen to release him.

Fuck, this headache was seriously not helping him concentrate. Thankfully Vexen had done something for his fever, otherwise he wouldn't be able to do much besides lie there and gather more material. He could always tell when the fever-reducing medicine wore off, because the real world kind of faded off into a haze, and he started having dreams that were fucked-up enough to make him write crap about Earth becoming Hell and minds tearing at the seams and all that. Come to think of it, he didn't even remember writing that any more than he remembered where the paper it was written on had come from; he just assumed he'd written it because it was in his handwriting. But even when his fever was down and he wasn't raving delirious and having hellish nightmares and such, that fucking _headache_ would not go the fuck _away_...

_All right. I know I can compose through a headache; I've done it before. Hell, if Axel and Roxas weren't completely bullshitting me about that one time, I can even compose raving delirious. I just have to...really _try_ and concentrate..._

All right. Maybe he should start by meditating the pain away. Just recite a healing mantra to himself, allowing nothing to distract him and focusing on nothing but the prayer, until he disconnected from the real world altogether. Then, if he could stay disconnected for a while, he could then reconnect slowly, and hopefully find a state where he was with-it enough to focus and just out-of-it enough to not feel pain. Even if he couldn't, meditating for a while would help him relax enough to focus with or without a headache...all right, focus on the mantra, focus on the mantra...keep reciting the prayer over and over, over and over, until it filled his entire consciousness, and _became_ his entire consciousness...

Some time later, he sighed, and realized his head no longer hurt. He'd also lost all track of time, but that was all to the good; he certainly felt like he'd had a nice, long mental break. Now, it was time to get started, before the headache kicked back in...unfortunately, as he soon realized, being as relaxed and peaceful as he was meant that he was not really able to work on such a weird, creepy composition as those few lines demanded, but he just could not _not write_. He had no choice but to write something as dreamy and relaxing as his mood demanded...hmm, violin would suit this. Accompanied by sitar. It was an odd combination, but one that suited his mood...granted, this was going to sound like a hell of a lot of everything else he'd ever written, but then, he already knew he was good at things like that...

...Well, damn. There was that stupid headache again. Now that he'd started on a soothing, tranquil piece, that was how he wanted to continue, but that damn headache kept getting between him and his inspiration, pounding on the inside of his skull and demanding he pay attention to the pain and not the music and doing its absolute best to ruin his relaxed mood, not to mention his concentration. He did his level best to ignore it, and keep working regardless, but he was starting to lose the flow of the music...no matter how he struggled to concentrate, the notes he was looking for kept slipping his grasp, and the melody became ever more disjointed and weird...

_Nonononono,_ said a little voice in his head. _Stop fighting this. Just go with it. This is perfect. This is absolutely perfect._

What?

Wait, _yes_. This _was_ perfect. Disjointed and weird was exactly what he wanted. The disintegration from normal to messed-the-fuck-up was so brilliant he wished he'd consciously thought of it. All right, where had he been? Right; now to just keep fighting with the headache for a little while, let the disintegration proceed a little further...this called for more instruments, right about...now. Electric guitar. Bass guitar. Let some good hard rock into the mix. This was going to be one weird-ass string quartet, but weird was the idea. And drums. This damn well needed percussion.

_And now...let all Hell break loose_.

His face was twisting into a weird, distorted grin as he wrote, but he couldn't have cared less if he'd known. No hellish fever dreams were going to frighten him anymore; all they could do now was add fuel to his creative fire. He could already hear it in his head, sometimes howling and screaming and roaring like thunder, sometimes trembling and whimpering as if running away from itself in fear, except the nightmare always caught up to it...four instruments were not gonna cut it. He needed more. _More_. More rawness, more tension, more horror, more _sound_... Even as the table he was writing on started to crack and melt, and the rats and worms began crawling out of the woodwork and filling the room, he kept writing. The room spun around him, the walls split apart and burned, and he ignored them in favor of his music. Every fresh horror was more fuel, and he was on fire now...

At some point, he blinked, and realized two things: one, that his head was about ready to split open, and two, that he now had a _lot_ of sheets of a lengthy work for a sixteen-piece orchestra plus sitar, guitar, and bass that he didn't really remember writing. Had he written all that while sky-high feverish and delirious? He must have, because he had no idea where the hell else all that could have come from...oh, Gods, his head felt like it was going to fucking _explode_. Was it any good? Fuck, his head was pounding so bad he couldn't even try to read it; it was painful enough just to keep his eyes open long enough to find the call button and push it in the hopes of eventually getting some kind of painkiller - someone must have come in and given him something to cut the fever, but he never got anything for the pain unless he asked specifically. It was a simple task, but it seemed to take as much effort as a Himalayan expedition...fuck it _all_, if his head actually did explode, he couldn't imagine it hurting more than it did now. Maybe, if it exploded, it would start to hurt a little _less_. All he could do was lie back, clutching his head and trying not to be sick all over himself...

From somewhere towards the back of his splitting skull, a bit of music sneaked out - a strange, disjointed melody, like the slide from wakefulness to fever dream.

Despite his misery, he couldn't help but smile just a little bit. Whatever the hell he'd written, it probably couldn't be too bad. He'd just have to read it later.

* * *

><p>AN: I was looking through some old documents that never went anywhere, and found that scrap of doggerel attached to one of them. It was and remains a bit of song Demyx was trying to write.<p>

Prompt: A character becomes manic during the story.


	14. In Search of Salvage Value

_Well, given the state of mind I must have been in when I wrote it, this is surprisingly not complete shit. And I don't know if I could write anything like this at all if I was dead level. This could be absolutely mind-blowing...if I can just get it cleaned the fuck up so it's fit to listen to at all._

Demyx couldn't help but sigh to himself, contemplating the magnitude of the task ahead of him, as he stared down at the two sheets of staff paper in front of him. No matter what his opinion of the work in front of him was, he just couldn't bring himself to alter the original, especially since he was hopefully not going to be in the same state of mind as he had been when he wrote it (namely delirious and hallucinating) any time in the near or distant future, thank you very much. Given how much work it would probably need to make it worth listening to, altering this original would be to essentially destroy one of his own creations, even if it wasn't a very lovely creation right now. Besides, he'd written the whole thing in pen. Instead, he was going to copy it onto a fresh sheet, in pencil, and make whatever changes he needed to the copy.

_Man, I must have been _flying _when I wrote that part,_ he thought, frowning to himself as he read over a particularly weird passage. _I wonder what the hell I was seeing, or thought I was seeing..._ Closing his eyes, he ran that passage over in his head, letting the sounds play out in his mind...blessed Gods, there was no saving that part at all. It was completely incoherent. He wasn't in the right mindset to simply compose something fresh in his place, but he'd found some good, viable themes in the pages he'd already gone over...if he took the one he'd decided was the main theme, and expanded on it here in grand fashion...his pencil was moving across the page almost of its own accord, transcribing not what was written on the original but what his muses were demanding now...yes, yes, that was _it_, that was _brilliant_; he could almost feel it resonating in his chest -

_Clunk!_

"What - dammit, Connie! That was my camera!"

The cat only yawned widely in response, stretching out to her full length in the spot on his desk where the camera had been, before straightening up and washing her face and paws as if he hadn't said a thing. Demyx just stared at her, wondering briefly what his life would be like if he'd gotten a dog or a bigger fish tank instead, then leaned over to pick up his fallen camera and inspect it for damage. Unfortunately, a bit of leftover dizziness chose that moment to kick in, and he ended up tumbling out of his desk chair to join the camera on the floor. Once down there, he decided it was safest to just lie there and wait a little bit, at least until the room stopped spinning, before trying to get up and get back to work. Connie, fickle creature that she was, promptly hopped off the desk to join him on the floor, nuzzling him and rubbing her head against the underside of his jaw. "Like it's not your fault I'm down here to begin with," Demyx muttered, stroking her fur anyway.

"Demyx? Are you all right? I heard that Vexen finally let you out of the hospital wing, but it looks like maybe you should still be in there..."

"I'm all right," Demyx grunted, wondering what sort of sixth sense Roxas had that let him know when he was having a little unplanned quality time with the floor. He had to have one, because there was no other way he could always show up right after he fell down. "I just had a...minor disagreement with gravity. Gravity won." He pulled himself to his feet, mostly to show Roxas that he was strong and healthy enough to do so without help, then noticed that he was still holding the camera and remembered why he'd been going after it in the first place. "Connie knocked my camera off the desk," he explained, sitting back down in his chair. "I just fell out of my chair trying to grab it." Now - it wasn't actually damaged, was it? He couldn't see any obvious damage...the lens didn't seem to be cracked or anything...he turned it on, just to make sure it would turn on and still worked all right - it seemed to - and couldn't resist snapping a quick picture of Roxas, who was staring blankly at him for as long as it took to shoot the photo. "Well, the camera still works," he said, quickly turning it off and keeping a tight grip on it as Roxas tried to pry it out of his grasp. "You look like a total idiot in that shot, though."

"Well, then, give me that camera so I can delete it," Roxas grunted, still trying to wrestle the camera away from Demyx, and scaring Connie away in the process. The yowl she let out distracted him long enough for Demyx to get the camera away from him once and for all. "...All right. You win. But you look pale, so you know. Maybe you should lie down for a bit."

"And let you have the camera while I take a nap?"

"Well, you don't want to sleep with the camera, do you?"

"...Roxas, it's so obvious how obvious that little ploy was that I feel embarrassed just pointing it out."

"...You _do _need a nap. That made no sense at all."

"Is there a reason you're here, other than nagging me about my health?"

"Well, I'd heard Vexen let you out of the hospital wing, so I wanted to stop by and see how you were doing," Roxas sniffed, sitting down on the bed while Connie looked at him suspiciously. "Is that such a bad thing?"

"No, but you always seem to come in when I'm having a conversation with the floor. It's like you have a sixth sense that forces you to investigate whenever I fall down."

"...That's happened _twice_. Including this time."

"Well, I don't make a habit of falling down all the time. It's not my fault the sample size is small."

"Sample size? You're borrowing vocabulary from Vexen now? You spend too much time in the hospital wing."

"Not by choice, Roxas. Not by choice." Demyx set the camera back down on the desk, far enough away from the edge that Connie hopefully wouldn't knock it off so easily a second time, and glanced back down at his work in progress. Where had he been...? Right, the theme was just swelling and expanding dramatically...he could almost hear it now; he just had to get it written down...oh, this was going to be awesome and terrifying and disturbing and _awesome_...like a roller coaster of sound...all right, that covered the part he'd thought was completely incoherent and worthless...how did it follow from there in the original? Hmm...all right, that was still pretty bad, but at least it had some coherence and some salvage value. How did it follow from the new section he wrote? If he cleared away some of the jumble, he could find that main theme in there again...yes, it would follow well; he just had to - "What - dammit, Roxas! Put the camera down!"

"It's your fault for getting distracted," Roxas said calmly, with no obvious intention of putting the camera down. "You're right, I did look like an idiot in that picture. Oh, well, it's gone now."

"Dammit!"

"Would cookies help you feel better?"

"If you put the stupid camera down, I would - wait, cookies? Roxas, _you_ made _cookies?_"

"Yes, Demyx," Roxas announced triumphantly, finally setting the camera down; Demyx quickly moved it back away from the edge of the desk for its own safety. "In celebration of your latest release from the hospital wing, I, the most incompetent cook in the Organization, have successfully made cookies."

"From _scratch?_"

"...Well, no. From store-bought dough. But I didn't burn them or underbake them or anything!"

"...All right. Call that a triumph. Where are they?"

"I left them in the kitchen to cool..."

"Well, then, bring them down here while there's still any left!" Roxas promptly disappeared through a portal, hopefully to the kitchen, and Demyx picked up the camera again, just to make sure Roxas hadn't messed with anything but that one picture. Nope, everything else was still there...where did Connie get to? There she was, up on the shelf, behind the bronze mermaid statue...she was just blinking down at him, with her big blue eyes, and he couldn't resist taking a quick picture of her.

A second later, he was diving out of his chair again to catch the mermaid before it hit the floor.

* * *

><p>AN: (shrugs)<p>

Prompt: During the story, there is a visit by a very common visitor. The story must involve a lens in it. During the story, a character finds a pleasant surprise.


	15. Cat of the Mountain

"Roxas...you know what that is, right?"

"Yeah..."

"Good."

"It's a...mountain lion, isn't it?"

"Sure. Mountain lion, puma, panther, catamount...there are a lot of things you can call it. But what I was really asking was more like...you know that thing is a large wildcat capable of breaking our necks in one jump, right?"

"Yes, Axel. I know that. You didn't need to point it out."

"Well, it is the important part."

"I _know_."

"I'm just saying."

While the two of them talked, the subject of their conversation remained on its perch, atop a boulder not nearly far enough away for their comfort, its eyes fixed unwaveringly on them, never moving a twitch. Most people would have called its gaze "predatory", but when it was focused on you, the word "predatory" suddenly seemed incredibly weak and inaccurate. There probably wasn't a word in any language either of them spoke to encompass the dispassionate, calculating hunger in its eyes. "...What do you bet it's a female and we're between her and her cubs," Roxas whispered, his voice shaking just a tiny bit and his gaze never leaving the cat on the rock.

"I don't think so," Axel said, trying hard to keep his tone light and casual while never glancing away from the mountain lion for a second. "I mean...not like I know a whole lot about mountain lions, but...it does look like an awfully big one. Which I think means it's probably a male and isn't going to have cubs to get defensive about."

"Thanks, Ax. That totally makes me feel better." Roxas's voice was shaking more now, a little higher than usual, and that damned cat was just not looking away, and it wouldn't even not look at them as though waiting for them to look away so it could pounce.

"Well, you were wondering," Axel said, trying hard to keep his own cool. "I'm just saying what I think."

"Shut up, Ax. You're totally not helping." It wasn't like Axel was actually looking at him - he didn't dare, because that would involve looking away from the mountain lion - but he was pretty sure Roxas was starting to shake physically now. "Can we...get out of here? Please?"

"Don't run, Rox," Axel ground out, grabbing Roxas's shoulder without looking away from the mountain lion. "If you turn around and run, it'll be convinced you're some kind of prey animal and go after you. And no way are you gonna outrun it."

"You know, for not knowing a whole lot about mountain lions, you seem to have a lot of advice..." Roxas's voice was climbing ever higher, and Axel could feel how tense he was - probably ready to panic and run, which _would_ get him killed, and Axel completely did not want to have to physically restrain him, because the mountain lion could probably kill them both and looked like it would if it had an excuse...like if he looked away for a second... "If we can't just leave without it killing us, then can't you, you know, find some way to scare it away?"

"How?" Axel spat, coming that close to taking his hand off Roxas's shoulder and slapping him. Dammit, Roxas's panicky mood was starting to affect him, almost as much as that damned stare... "I mean, does it look particularly afraid of us right now?"

"It's a wild animal, dumbfuck. Aren't most wild animals scared of fire?"

...Why hadn't that occurred to him in the first place? Axel didn't know, but hell, it wasn't like he had a better idea. Summoning a ball of fire in his free hand, he flung it at the wildcat on the rock. Unfortunately, using his off hand, his aim was off; the fireball splattered against the rock...and the mountain lion yowled and vanished over the other side of the rock, before Axel even realized it was leaving. He just stared fixedly at the rock it had been on for a second, before he caught on that there was no longer a wildcat sitting on top of it staring back at them. "Oh...well," he said, shaking himself off and feeling as though some terrible spell had been broken. "I guess that scared it off. All right. Axel one, mountain lion zero."

Roxas gave him a light shove for that; Axel noted that his hands were still shaking, then looked down and realized that so were his own. "Don't bullshit me; you never would have thought of it on your own."

"Hey, if you'd been out here on your own, that thing would have eaten you, got it memorized?" All of a sudden, Axel started laughing, simply because the danger was over and the tension was broken and neither of them had been eaten, while Roxas looked at him like he'd lost his last IQ point. "What?" Axel choked, unable to stop himself. "Don't look at me like that. I mean, it's gone, we're not dead, that's good, right? Come on; we just spent ten minutes trapped by a wildcat that got scared off by one fireball. One stupid fireball. I didn't even hit it; I just hit near it."

Roxas's you're-an-idiot stare was as unwavering as the mountain lion's had been, but eventually, he started to crack the tiniest smile. "One fireball, yeah - one fireball that it took you ten minutes to throw, and then only because I told you to."

"Hey, I threw it eventually, didn't I?" Axel countered, ruffling Roxas's hair just to annoy him, and to ease the remaining tension. "Besides, the ten-minute delay is not the important part; the important part is that the mountain lion is gone and we can actually move without getting eaten. Rejoice in that."

"You're full of it, Axel, so you know," Roxas said, but his smile got a little bit wider. "All right, fine. The mountain lion is gone and we didn't get eaten. Yay. Now let's finish this mission so we can go home, and you can tell Demyx all about how you bravely fought it off in hand to hand combat."

"Hey -!"

* * *

><p>AN: Granted, having a mountain lion staring at you like that doesn't do wonders for your thought process.<p>

Prompt: This story must have a cougar in it.

And, you may note, "cougar" was the one thing Axel did _not _call it.


End file.
